Rainy Chaos

Just when I thought life had finally started to settle down into some sort of normal, God decided we needed to be shaken up a bit.  The house we are renting was having its roof redone.  Well, during this process, the roof is not in place, so if something like a large rain storm rolls through, the house will be wide open to the rain.  Low and behold, when the entire roof was off, and untarped, we had a huge rain storm.  Mike and I woke up at 12:05 AM to the awesome thunder and lightening we were having, and then bolted out of bed when we realized the rain that was falling outside was also falling inside.  Not good news in the middle of the night.  We then spent the next three hours protecting our stuff as much as we could from the 20ish leaks that were in our ceiling.  It was really exciting when the fire alarms filled with water, shorted out and started going off, and we realized none of our kids woke up.  We had to pull them out of the ceiling to turn them off, but as soon as one went off, they all went off.  It was a very loud night.  The kids did all wake up when water was dripping over their beds or in their rooms.  We finally put them all in the one room that wasn't leaking and set them up with a movie until we could figure out if we were going to need to leave the house or not.  The Princess Bride is wonderful even in the worst circumstances.  After the rain stopped and we were confident we had all of the leaks under control we all settled in to finish out the short night.  So here we sit 2 days later in a hotel, which is not the same hotel as we stayed in last night, waiting for Mike to meet with the owner and the property manager.  Hopefully we will have a plan for the next couple of weeks.  School starts for me in two weeks and for the kids in 3 and a half.  Crazy to think we may not be in a house at all during that time.  The damage is extensive, knowing if they are going to fix it, we will be displaced for weeks.  Fun with 5 kids and 2 animals.  I am trying to understand what God is showing me through this process.  I have complete confidence that all things work together for good for those who love God.  All things, even the crazy, unbelievable, inconvenient things.  We are together as a family and at least tonight we have adjoining rooms.  Wasn't the case last night, when I had to spend my anniversary night in a different room than my husband.  I am excited to see what God has for us in this.  We are told to be thankful in all things.  In ALL things.  So I am choosing to be thankful.  It doesn't make sense to be thankful, but that is the command from God, and he has been so faithful.  Do I have any other choice?  My prayer for months has been, God, let me show people your glory.  I pray this is an opportunity.
Tomorrow we travel to Seattle to take Grace to her all day palate board appointment.  I am excited to see what we are going to be able to do for her.  She is such a precious gift.  We are on the big count down to the start of school, and I am getting excited.  I want to do what I feel God has called me to do. I want to do what is His will.  I am positive I will see Him work through me, and I want to give Him all the "Glory".  Again with that word.
The rest of the kids are holding up fine.  They are precious and concerned about the sweetest things.  We weren't sure the ceiling was going to hold, so we told them to grab their most valuable things from their rooms.  It was insightful to see what they see as valuable.  They grabbed things like books and favorite stuffed animals, blankets and pillows.  They grab items they had made, and things people had given them.  They grabbed things that evoked good memories.  I was scrambling to make sure all my pictures that are not saved on any sort of digital format were safe and not getting soaked and destroyed. I realized how little I cared about stuff to save it and I saw that my concern was my family and my memories.
We will go forward from here and look back someday and just smile about the crazy time we lived through.  We will continue to seek God through this all.  We will feel blessed for what we have and that what is really important is here in this tiny hotel room with us.