Instead what we should be saying is thank you for the
massive challenge you just laid before me, I’m going to conquer it and move
forward and never dream of questioning how much more I can handle.
Not quite yet a week ago I lay in a hotel bed asking God
that question – that very question of how much more do you think I can take?… A
non-working furnace that had to be replaced in the middle of a snow storm
forcing my entire family to retreat to a hotel for warmth since we have a
medically fragile child who can’t self-regulate temperature.
Over the weekend we began to experience our lights dimming
and flickering, something we thought was likely directly related to our new
furnace potentially drawing too much power.
(Or so we rather hoped). But to
our dismay when our electrical box was opened it was evident what we were
dealing with was more severe, scary and of course let’s not forget going to be
very expensive.
Melting of components had started to occur, signs that
electrical arcing was occurring. Faulty
panel, and had nothing to do with the furnace installation whatsoever. A problem that had been brewing for sometime
given the cobwebs around the damaged parts – essentially a ticking time bomb
for our home. Best case scenerio you
lose all power, worse case you’re going to have a massive catastrophic home
fire.
There it was - how much more can you take - hand, sealed and
delivered. You need a new electrical
box. I can’t say for a brief moment I
didn’t want to be just pissed off at the world. That meant no power – again.
For hours. Meaning Noah needed
another place to stay… again for hours.
And the price tag, impossible when you’re trying to pay for multiple
therapies, out of pocket equipment and medical costs. I wanted to throw a tantrum bigger than Rumpelstiltskin ever
had. Pound my feet deep into the ground
and shout “what for?” (And at this
moment I still kind of want to do that… maybe just a little bit).
But, with time comes perspective and what is important at
this very moment is that my family is alive.
We are safe. We dodged two very
potentially dangerous situations in one week.
How lucky can you get that we warned of these brewing problems before
something tragic happened? Blessings? Yes.
Hidden, but blessings.
Things could have gone tragically wrong, we could have been
a family you heard on the news that didn’t escape a fire or suffered the
consequences of carbon monoxide poisoning with a severely disabled child. So even though it feels like I can’t handle
much more, the reality is what has been set before me pales in comparison to
all that could have happened and didn’t.
I may not like it, but it’s okay.
I must remember the blessings – remember the good, and remain eternally
thankful.
Love,
Noah's Miracle by Stacy Warden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.