Life doesn’t always go as planned

A few days after I arrived at my parents we started rearranging furniture in my bedroom to make room for some of the things I'd sent on the container. That led to the discovery of a water problem – at least in my room. Last Thursday morning my bleary eyes became wide awake when I stepped in water as I entered the bathroom. A quick look around showed that water was pretty much everywhere in the basement following about 6 ½ inches of rain during the night. I'm not sure what any of us had planned for the day but I know "completely empty the basement" was not on the list. Thanks to the help of my brother and one of his friends (thanks Randy!) everything that was in the basement (except for what is on shelves in the storeroom) is now either in the living room or in the garage. Dad even arranged it all so two cars will fit in the 3 car garage. In the process I made enough trips up and down the steps that my calves were sore the next morning. If you stop by during the next several weeks you are welcome to sit in the kitchen or at the dining room table. If you want something that is normally found in Dad's desk or in the sewing room, you'll just have to wait awhile. For now we have fans and dehumidifiers going to dry out the carpet as we try to figure out what can be done to try and prevent this from happening again. We've heard stories of someone who had waist-high water in their basement (thanks to 10 inches of rain) and another basement in the area that caved in. The dampness in our basement is inconvenient but so far all that's been thrown out is carpet pad.

Friday afternoon we headed north to De Smet SD with my brother's family. Elizabeth has loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books so a trip to see where most of the stories in her books happened and the pageant sounded like a good weekend getaway. We spent all our time at the Ingalls homestead which is a great place to take kids. You can't go wrong when the first rule is, "Please touch, feel and climb on anything you want." Elizabeth jumped in with both feet and loved it all. She even washed clothes twice using a washboard. The woman in the replica of the Ingalls home had a great rapport with the kids and an hour later as we came by again she called Elizabeth by name. As the evening went on the clouds became more menacing and once again the weather changed our plans. Shortly after we got back to the hotel rain was coming down in sheets. Elizabeth was disappointed (and so were the rest of us) but there is always next year.

As I go through this time of transition it feels like nothing is stable. I was just getting things unpacked and remembering where I'd put them when I had to pack them all up again and now it's all out in the garage in different boxes. I was reminded this morning that no matter how things change or how unpredictable life becomes Jesus is the one who was, who is, and who is to come. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He never changes and he's sovereign over all the change in my life. That is very good.