Perseverance

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.


My week has been crappy, literally. It started Thursday last week, I found water in my basement and it looked to me that it had come from the air conditioner and had been accumulating for awhile. The closer that I looked the more I saw sitting in water, a mattress, a couch on it's end, suitcases, boxes and the list started to get longer and longer. So I spent most of the day Saturday, along with my parents help, taking out all the things that had been damaged from the water out of the basement out to the back yard. Some of those things belonged to my husband, who died over 5 years ago, his life. It was a time of purging. I was angry and sad and basically just not happy. I will spend time tomorrow hauling this stuff to the dump. Anyhow, then this week on Wednesday, as my daughter would say "the house sounds like to has a bad stomach ache and then it threw up." The septic tank quite working, or whatever the terminology is, the house smelled like a septic tank and I had cleaning to do in the shower and bathtubs. Our house is only 7 years old and most of the time living here it has only been my daughter and I in this house. I couldn't get over that we could have had this kind of trouble. So now I'm not just unhappy but really upset. We can not take showers, I could not finish my wash and the dishes. You don't think how much you take something forgranted until you can't use it.


All this to say, the Lord uses all things to see if we can we can be joyful in all things and be able to give thanks. I can honestly say that this has not been easy for me this past week. I have cried this week, yelled this week, and even tired to laugh about it to keep me from crying. I was angry at God for allowing this to happen when He could take his little finger and fix the problem. But that is not the way that it happened, no I had to purge some life, because it was time, God's time. It is all over now, not without a little heartache and money, and I hope that in the not so distant future I will be able to look back and say it all started when I had a crappy week, literally.