I spent most of yesterday out running errands.  Feeling green, I bought some organic tampons and chlorine-free bleach (among other things).  Since I didn’t need to use the tampons when I got home, I decided to try a wash with the bleach.  I was unconvinced that the tree-hugger bleach was capable of my toxic bleach’s germ killing power so I decided that a hot water wash would cover all my bases.  And it did indeed cover more than that.

It covered my garage floor.

I imagine in Heaven (or where ever it is that He lives) that God said to himself, "I think Stephanie needs to clean out her garage.  I  know she will never just do it on her own, so I am going to give her an excuse."

How helpful.

I walked in the garage, for reasons still unknown to me, to see water spurting from my hot water heater and flowing down my garage floor.  I called Charming immediately who told me to turn off the water supply, which I somehow managed to figure out.  I then sent out two emails for help and started to panic.  Charming had asked me if I could handle it, and I said I could, but I quickly im’d him saying I could NOT DEAL WITH THIS.

A mild anxiety attack started to set in.  I was shaking and my heart was pounding.  I just had no idea what to do.  Charming asked me to call people, but I couldn’t.  It’s hard to understand this if you’ve never suffered from a mood disorder, but I could not pick up the phone.

And then the phone rang.

"Hi, this is (gal from church that I don’t know very well) and I still have that brand new water heater in my garage that I can give you for cheap, and you ought to call so and so and let me call some other people to see what we can do."

Nice. 

An hour later I tried calling a few plumbers and had no luck. (One number I called was actually a private residence– a story for another time). And then the phone rang again.

"Hi this is (son of someone at church) I am a general contractor, let me come look at that water heater tonight so we can figure out a way to get you some hot water."

Wow.

As for the rest of the day, I had one friend come over and buy some product and offer up her shower, another came by and took a load of laundry and another friend volunteered to come over and help with the cleanup and she took a load of laundry home too as well as opening her home for showers.

Think I’m being watched out for? 

I don’t really believe in coincidences.  That water heater sat in that woman’s garage for three years before she sent out an email saying she needed to get rid of it.  I think it no coincidence that she still had it a few weeks later.  That water heater was meant for me in this moment, I am pretty sure.  Because God knows I don’t have any more cash for these kinds of things, and that I am working on getting our financial house in order while still paying our tithing on a regular basis.  And God knows that sometimes I feel like no one at church likes me and he sent those ladies to serve me so I could remember to stop eating worms.

At first I was mad about the water heater breaking, but now I know, God just wanted to show me a little love.  And I hope that when your water heater breaks, you have a community like the one I have.  I am so grateful that I have it.

A really great birthday post is coming….I am just too busy right now to write it.

But!

My sister gave me the movie Evan Almighty for my birthday, and I really liked it.   If you have been afraid to see it because it might be too sacreligious or anything, see it anyway.  It actually has a really great message about life and God and priorities.

I just have to share my favorite part.  Evan (Steve Carrell) is talking to God (Morgan Freeman) and he is telling him that building an ark doesn’t fit in with his plans.  God starts laughing.  "I’m sorry," he says.  "Your plans…" and then hysterical laughter again.

It’s just so true!  Anytime we make "plans" there always seems to be something else that God has in store for us.  And I kept thinking throughout the whole movie when Evan is concerned about losing his job or looking stupid, that if God was asking him to build the ark, then God would take care of him in the end. 

And that is a reminder for us all.  Stop worrying.  It has always worked out in the past, so why wouldn’t it now.

Anyway.  Good movie.  Very funny and very tender. 

So this morning the children were watching a video about the birth of Jesus.  (No, I did not pay for this video, it was free from the mall, I would never pay $1 a minute for the crummy animation!)

Anyway, at the end of this particular "episode" they show baby Jesus escaping to Egypt and then they end the movie by showing him as a young man learning carpentry from Joseph.  In the previous scene, Herod’s men were pillaging the town looking to kill the infant Jesus, and Engineer was quite upset by this.  But then he saw that Jesus was okay at the end and wasn’t worried about that anymore.

And then he started to cry.

"He’s not a baby anymore!  Why did he have to grow up?"

Because, that’s what babies do.

"Oh Spider!  Spider is going to have to grow up and not be a baby anymore!  She’ll be a girl!  A girl like, Sugar!"

Bless his little baby-loving heart. 

I’m such a whiner.  There are so many good things I could be blogging about and I keep on complaining.  I am at my mom’s right now.  I drove over on Sunday and since we "moved" to the Rainy Place, Mom’s house is only a FIVE hour drive instead of the old TWELVE.  I am glad for that.  But on the way over I listened to some Christian radio programming and one fellow was talking about Abraham and how he was asked to sacrifice Isaac.  It made me really ponder some things.  I realized that I don’t think God will ever ask me to make such extreme sacrifices or go through hardhsips like Job, but that those stories are in the scriptures so I can see how small my hardships are.

I’m not having any sort of picnic right now.  But I am not having a Job-like or and Abraham-like situation.  And if they continued to have faith, and if they managed to get through their garbage, than why shouldn’t I? 

And there are good things I can focus on.  Spider is walking!  She has another new tooth!  I was able to make a five hour drive with three kids and no adult driving companion!  We have food, shelter, clothing, my hub’s got an awesome job, I get to "restart" my Mary Kay business and I have friends and family who love me. 

Now, if I could just quit crying about everything, it just might be all right.

So last week we went to the zoo.  We joined a group of all of 3 families who braved the cold to see but a few animals that they allow to brave the January temperatures.  (Not even the penguins were out.)

But we did get to go into the giraffe barn.

Have you ever heard a giraffe pee?  It sounds like a firehose.  As soon as I heard the sound of the tall mammal urinating and told Charming, he grabbed the kids and went running to witness the event. I couldn’t believe the speed of his reaction.  It was like someone said there was an available Nintendo Wii.

Now Engineer and Sugar have some pretty interesting prayers at times.  Engineers are usually understandable, with an initial "Dear Heavenly Father" and a closing "Amen".  But the stuff in the middle is sometimes a little muddled.  It’s as if he has interpreted what he thinks we said and translates it into how he thinks it sounds.  Sugar bases her prayers off of what Engineer says, so hers are even more random and unintelligible.

And yet the day after we went to the zoo, she felt it was important to tell Heavenly Father that giraffes, yes indeed, do pee.  Her prayer went something like this: "Blah, blah, hmm, hoo doo, And giraffes pee… and giraffes poop… hmm, hoo ha, Amen."

And then Engineer’s prayer this night was, "Dear Heavenly Father, I am thankful for this day.  Chocolate is so good and yummy, yummy and I can have a drink.  Name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Who taught these people how to pray? 

Me: (to Sugar)  What’s this?

(Correct Answer: Money)

Sugar: Ummm, Jesus? 

We returned home last night from my parents’ home after a 12+ hour drive. On our trip we stopped in a town that had some memories for Charming and I which has prompted me to write this post.  This post about charitable acts rendered to our family.

4 1/2 years ago when I was pregnant with Engineer, Charming and I took a trip to see my family and trade in our Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra (aka The Beast) for a new Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra (Beast 2) that my Dad had gotten for us.  We were very excited as the Beast was (we felt) on it’s last legs.  As it turned out, Beast 2 was more on its last legs than the Beast was, as the car threw an engine rod just before the last offramp to Pocatello, Idaho.

We were just able to drive off the offramp and coast onto a little residential street before the car totally died.

Just picture it.  We’d been married less than a year and I was about 3 months pregnant, and we found ourselves in the dark, in an unknown town with no cell phone.  We had already been on the road 9+ hours.  We got out of our car and just started walking, trying to find a phone or a mechanic or anything open.  It was late in the evening.  We eventually found ourselves in a mini-mart/video store.  A nice family who were renting a video overheard our conversation with the cashier and offered to help us. 

First, they made room in their car and drove us to our car for some luggage and then they took us to a Motel 6 (which would have been way to far for us to walk to).  The man gave us the name of his mechanic, who could tow our car and left us with his phone number.  In the morning the same man, picked us up from the hotel, and took us to the mechanic and later took us to the bus station (as we would not be leaving Pocatello with Beast 2).

What this family did for us, was perhaps so simple to him, and yet meant the world to us.  What would we have done being miles from home in a sleepy town?  For just a few hours, this family showed kindness on us, took us in in a sense, just because.  It was one of the kindest, most Christian thing any stranger has ever done for us.

The second act of kindness occured on yet another traveling adventure.  We were coming home on a plane from Florida.  We hit serious turbulence and pregnant me and toddler Engineer vomited much.  I used a barf bag.  Engineer used Charmings lap.  Engineer was covered in pukes and we had to strip him down, with nothing to dress him in.  When we got off of the plane (at our first stop, we still had another leg of the flight left) a couple in the airport (from our flight) approached us, and asked if our little boy had vomitted on the plane.  We of course said that he had.  She then made a very kind and Christian gesture, by giving us an Atlanta Braves t-shirt for Engineer.  She had just bought it, and it was about 6 sizes too big for Engineer, but we were so grateful that our baby didn’t have to be naked for the next 4 hours. 

So that’s it.  At this holiday season it is nice to remember random acts of kindness.  I hope I would do the same for someone else.

How about you?  Any stories of charity that you’d like to share.