My life has felt a bit like a Chevy Chase/National Lampoon movie in the past couple of weeks…. Not so sure what the LORD is up to, but oh my! The drama has been pretty amazing and crazy.
Let’s start with 2 ½ weeks ago (drama #1)…..
The backstory…. Ben and I have been praying about what the LORD would have us do as far as buying property here in Montana. We saw a property a couple of months ago and had been dreaming about it and praying for the LORD’s direction about whether it was the property we were to buy and develop. The property backs up on a huge wilderness area, and consisted of a finished log house (albeit pretty rough), and an unfinished log house with great “bones” – with doors and a few windows installed, and sub-flooring, but no heat, no power, no plumbing, no water. We were dreaming about buying it and finishing the second home beautifully and renting out one of them on VRBO as an income stream (there is a lot of that here in Bigfork).
Spencer (our 21 year old son) had been visiting us for a bit. It had begun to get warmer and we had a couple of days of bright sunshine and up to 80 degrees. We decided to put the awning out on the RV Tuesday, May 30. It’s a bit challenging – it’s heavy and a bit cumbersome. We hadn’t really worked with it much, and were not particularly proficient in getting it out (or in), but we eventually got it set up. The following day, we went to look at another property local to where we are staying in the RV. As we returned, we saw the ugliest and most threatening cloud I have ever seen to the south of us (toward where the RV is parked). It looked like the ugliest bruise you can imagine… browns, yellows, blues, blacks and it stretched from the ground to as high as I could see. It was moving our direction really fast.
Remember, the RV awning (effectively, a sail) was out…. The storm hit when we were about 2 blocks away with 50+ mph gusts of wind. We arrived and jumped out of the car to wrestled with the awning – trying desperately to get it retracted. The wind was howling and a torrential rain began and lightning streaked overhead. Spencer climbed up onto the top of the RV (a metal box) and was wrestling with the awning (attached to metal bars) while Ben and I struggled on each support trying to get it put away. Lightning and a human lightning rod (on the roof of a metal box, no less), and Ben and I fighting to keep the awning from tearing off and sailing away while holding on to metal poles. Hmmmmm. In retrospect, pretty stupid. We got the awning tethered (not put away) but at least flat against the RV. Spencer came down unharmed and we got into shelter and watched the lightning play and listened to the thunder and watched the torrents of rain.
I know I can be pretty thick headed, so I spent the time that evening asking God just exactly what He wanted me to learn. Whatever it was, I really, really wanted to learn whatever it was (so we would not need another “lesson”!).
As I prayed, I thought about our prayer for His direction about what we should do about the property we had been dreaming about. We have lived in the RV twice – 3 months last summer, and a week (at that time) this summer. We have yet to really get up to speed with the relatively simple control systems of the RV. We’re getting better at doing things like the sewer connection and stuff – but there are still aspects of how it works we have yet to spend time with figuring out. The property we have been dreaming about has a lot of pretty complex systems – septic, well controls, a heating system we’ve never dealt with before – and we were dreaming about adding a whole lot of other new systems with the unfinished structure. Hmmm. We don’t really know the systems of our relatively simple and small living place – are we really equipped to deal with 10 acres and the many systems required, and the other variables such as downed trees and lots of wild creatures such as grizzlies, mountain lions and wolves? As I pondered and prayed, it came to me that the LORD was showing us what we were not really willing to see… that we are not equipped to handle that kind of project. And He helped me see that this RV debacle was an answer to our prayer for direction – and that His answer was a very loud and clear NO.
I’m so grateful that the LORD knows us… and He knows how stubborn and hard-headed I can be when I want to do something. Sometimes it takes a severe blow to my, oh so hard head, to get something through it. Praising God that none of us were struck by lightning! And for the clarity we have about this issue.
The saga continues….. (drama #2)
Ben left for Seattle June 4th and I followed on the 6th. (As an aside… our RV’s electrical/heat/hot water systems quit working entirely Tuesday morning prior to my flight to Seattle! )
Our daughter, Elise was graduating from the U.W. Friday, June 9th and we were excited to be there with her. While there, we planned to see friends, and then to head to Olympia to pack our stored furniture and household stuff into two 26 foot U-Haul trucks to drive it to Montana for storage closer to home. Our pack on Monday went fine (although it’s amazing just how much stuff we have!). We finished up and headed out planning to make it to Moses Lake that evening.
About 4 miles west of Ellensburg, Spencer (who was following Ben and me in the other truck) called my cell phone. The road noise was pretty bad and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I told him I couldn’t hear him and that we could talk when we stopped for dinner. He shouted louder and wouldn’t let me hang up. Finally, I heard him say, “SMOKE!”, just as Ben and I saw smoke pouring out of our engine and all kinds of alarms and lights erupting from the dashboard. We pulled off and immediately a state patrol car pulled in behind us. He told us that he’d seen a big fluid spill a couple of miles back, and had driven looking for someone to be broken down at the side of the road. I’m so grateful that the engine did not catch fire!!!!!!
We called U-Haul and it took a really long time for them to figure out what they wanted to do. Eventually, they offered to put us up at the Red Lion in Ellensburg, and we settled in sometime after midnight. I was awake when the banging just outside of our ground floor windows began at 6:15 am. However, Spencer (in the room beside ours) was not, and I did not want him woken up. I dressed, looked outside and saw two roofing company vehicles outside our rooms. Management got them to stop work until 8 am – and I went to the restaurant to study for a while. Ben came after about an hour, but I was on the phone with a friend and he simply waved and smiled and went away. He returned after my call and asked me to come with him to the room…. He had something to show me.
We walked into the room and he walked over to the window which was covered by the curtains. He motioned me to come over and pulled back the curtain to show me the lower window which was shattered, but had two knife-like shards of glass sticking up from the lower frame. Ben explained that he had sat down in the office chair adjacent to the window, tipped the chair slightly and went over backwards. His head shattered the window as he fell headfirst to the asphalt outside (remember it was a ground-floor room, thank the LORD!!). He told me that the curtain had wrapped around his head and neck as he fell – and that curtain protected his neck (read carotid arteries) from the knife-like shards, and also cushioned his head as he hit the pavement. He had carefully drawn himself back into the room, and was not cut by the broken glass. Truly it is miraculous that he was not killed – by the knife-like shards of glass, or by cracking his head on the pavement outside. I have been praising God since that Ben survived… and that I did not return to Montana as a widow.
Honestly, I am not sure exactly why we have had such drama this past year. When we moved into the RV last June, Ben had a freak accident in which he accidentally accelerated into our parked RV – totaling his car and very nearly totaling the RV on the very first full day we were in it. That same afternoon, he fell from the top step of the RV onto the concrete pad below. He was pretty bruised, but thankfully, he did not break any bones, and he did not crack his head open on the cement.
This entire year has been full of “growth opportunities” (read challenges)…. I am praying that the LORD continues to protect us, and that He shows us His purpose in all that we have been through.
Thankful for your protection!!