If you hadn't heard, we had a big 'ole ice storm here in the Ozarks, and it was pretty nasty. That would be why we've been "offline" and no blog updates for a while. A tree took out our phone line on Tuesday and it just got fixed Saturday afternoon. Thankfully, most people have weathered it fairly well and God spared us from losing electricity for any extended periods of time. We are beyond grateful to live where we are right now and not back in our Thayer home, as most of Thayer is without electricity, which means no water either because we have a well.
This week, because of the ice storm, we have been feeling the pressures. We had someone wanting to come look at our Thayer house this week, interested in buying it. I laughed, like, come on, Lord! Really?! The week you send a huge ice storm?! Knowing who controls the weather helps us rest in His sovereignty and not freak out. Gary ventured out to Thayer on Thursday to check on the house, business, and family members, and said it looked like a bomb went off, a mess everywhere. Gary's dad who lives only a couple miles from our house rode his tractor with front end loader on it and cleared a path of limbs and debris, taking over 2 hours to get to our house! It's a big mess. We have TONS of trees in that yard...well, now we have TONS of limbs down. It'll be okay, though.
Also, our main store, Kosh Wholesale, has been out of power since Tuesday, which means the store's been closed since then. Hard thing for a small business owner to be closed so much, especially in these times. BUT, God's been faithful to remind us that He is wise. The Bible curriculum we're using for home school talked about God is Wise: He works all things out perfectly. The text was about Joseph. We've been reviewing the curriculum as part of our family worship time each evening, and it was such a good reminder for us in the midst of this time, a time when little money is coming in and many bills are due. One way God is providing is through our insurance which is going to help out on loss. It is good to know that God is still in the midst of these things and we get to allow our children to see how God is providing for us.
Another cool thing: our home fellowship couldn't meet at the home we usually meet in because of the ice storm- too hard to get there. Instead, this morning, we broke up and met in 3 different homes. We hosed one of them here and had a big breakfast together, then had worship time and then worked on cleaning up yards and such. Well, the worship time was sweet in intimacy and sharing. One of the things shared was James 1, about suffering- consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds...this was a passage that Gary had mentioned to me and we discussed just last night as he's doing a study on James with a friend. Anyway, it was really neat. And all the sharing and adding to and encouraging was so sweet. And the house here is all cleaned up, trees all taken care of- only need to haul off the piles of debris now. It was such a blessing to have the church body together helping. Here are a few pics of the ice storm and the clean up in progress.
1 comments:
o.k. there were some tears from the kids. I just reminded them that they were very blessed that they did not have to pick up our sticks and Ms. Marty's sticks. That dried up the tears rather quickly. I admit it was hard to see the trees, but we are very grateful for you all and that you are loving our home and taking care of it, as if it were your own.
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