The Lord Provides, Talk With Him

5/9/2020

A reflective Saturday morning is upon me. What a week we have had! We finished with the little things we wanted to fix and spruce up before we put this house on the market and on Monday, 5/4 our house was listed. On Tuesday we had two showings; on Wednesday we had two showings and some folks in Texas received pictures, etc. from a realtor. Also on Wednesday, we had two offers. On Thursday we had two more offers and the couple in Texas began driving to come see the house—they drove straight through arriving Friday, noonish. By 4pm Friday, we had two very fine offers and the couple from Texas won the bid at an excellent sales price. Yes, that’s a lot to reflect on. 

Of course, we now see a much clearer path to getting ourselves moved into the smaller house down the mountain and close to downtown Fort Payne. Perhaps about 3 weeks from now, we’ll be moving in. That house will be finished by then, we’re pretty sure. Painting, floor finishing, and trim out is about all that’s left to be done on the interior, The outside, that’s another story. But, we believe we’ll move pretty fast to make it presentable for our 60th Anniversary celebration! (TBA) sometime around the 24th of June.

We’ve used several specialty contractors as well as a general contractor to totally redo the house to which we’re moving. Two of the people we contracted specialty jobs with are dragging their jobs out horribly. The roofers, the siding people, the general work; these were done swiftly and efficiently. The retaining wall against the hillside, that contractor has had many problems and for the most part it is understandable why he’s not finished. The rain started on a heavy and often pattern, “set in” is a good term, and has kept him from being able to get any of his jobs done (we’re just in his mix, somewhere) and besides that, he has had equipment failures on big equipment that might have broken some people. Finally, weather is looking up, his main tractor is being fixed and we’re hoping he’ll finish in a couple more days.

The electrician, is a mystery. He hasn’t got a good reason for being so slow. He lies to us about when he’ll be there, he comes by and doesn’t do anything, and what he’s accomplished is haphazard—not in the wiring and safety of it—but, such as a new breaker box system, all wiring tied in, but no labels as to what each breaker services! One man who has used him before, told me he never labels anything.!? How weird is that? We will not put up with this contractor if by Monday most, if not all is finished. (Yes, this man works on weekends. Sometimes.)

This morning, several songs wound their way through my thoughts, from Beatles to Jim Reeves. The one song which I will call the SIMH today, was done by Jim Reeves, but he wasn’t the version in my head. My wife, Barb and I sang this song as a duet in the Baptist church we joined after I got saved: “How Long Has It Been”—by Mosie Lister, written in 1956. He said he wrote it after remembering the childhood prayers he was taught in his christian home. He began to wonder if others could remember their prayers and soon wondered how many still prayed regularly. He said he started writing, wrote the whole song in about 10 minutes, laid it up on the piano and went on about his day, not even wondering if it was worthwhile. It turned out that over 600 artists have recorded it, it sold over a million sheet music copies very quickly, and the rest is history. (This song fits my “reflective attitude” this morning, don’t you think?)

Remember, trust is to be in the Lord. Allow Him to direct your path. At best, our understanding of things is weak, but the Lord’s way is always correct, never containing an error.

Thanks for reading, the Elder