Psalm 139:16b  Every day of my life was recorded in Your book.
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I Can't Take It Anymore

9/27/2012

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Click on the picture for a very encouraging song.
FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!  My eyes scanned the bill quickly looking for some mistake, some catch.  Surely this was incorrect or maybe it was for multiple months.  But try as I might, there was no mistake.  This was our water and electric bill for one month!  I freaked out.  How could we possibly afford to live here when our water alone was over $300?  My mind raced through scenarios of how to stop using water. 

I thought about all the laundry we do everyday.  I have been using the washer that was already here until we can get my high efficiency one set up. The one that was here is much smaller so I run a lot more loads with a lot more water.  So much for being patient and getting bedrooms done first.  We were going to have to get my washer hooked up fast.  However, we wanted to put the washer and dryer under the stairs and out of the kitchen.  There is already plumbing because right then it was the awkward bathroom.  But Sunday had been so nice since we finally had two bathrooms, we didn't have to start getting ready for church by 6:30am.  I had thought maybe we would wait even longer to change anything. It wasn't what we wanted but it could work.  Not to mention, my washer leaks sometimes and we didn't want to ruin the floor, maybe by the time we made the switch I could just get a new one that didn't leak.  So much for that idea, we needed to make a change NOW.

Next I thought about the dishes.  I have a high efficiency dishwasher sitting on the back porch but the old dishwasher we took out is so old that the plumbing and electrical hook ups don't match today's dishwashers.  It certainly uses less water than I do since I fill up the sink many times a day to keep up with the piles of dishes.  I thought I was being patient and not putting an extra burden on my husband by nagging for a dishwasher.  I wondered what it would cost to use paper plates.

Next I considered showers...  But the washer was the one thing I could work on now so into the awkward bathroom I went and started cleaning it out.  Then I started taking apart the stand up shower but it seemed like it was attached to the floor somehow.  I tried everything I could think of, even looking up You Tube videos of how to remove a shower.  All of them said if the drain didn't come apart that I would have to cut the pipe.  I didn't want to lose that drain pipe though because we were going to get a plastic pan that sits under the washer and have the leak drain out through what was the shower drain.  I spent 2 hours trying to get this thing out, even going to the hardware store twice but in the end I started cutting the drain pipe which meant digging through insulation and reaching to a very awkward place over the pile of coal in the basement.  Jared came home and saw what I was doing.  After looking at it for a minute he went upstairs and lifted the shower off the drain.  I could not believe my eyes.  I didn't even have to cut the pipe!  The insulation was holding it down not the drain.  I was fit to be tied.  I had to go pick up and drop off people since one of our cars wasn't working and when I returned Jared had the sink out as well as the toilet.  I could have saved a lot of time and just let him do the whole thing!

Due to many years of unvented shower steam the walls under the stairs were a mess.  I went to the store to get the things we would need to prepare the new laundry room.  Marty was at work so I thought I'd surprise him and go get the supplies myself.  I got drywall, paint, and flooring.  While I was there a young girl came up to me and asked if she could give me her gift card for the returns she just made and I could give her cash for gas.  She was even willing to take half of the card value, she just needed some gas.  I've been there.  I know that desperation and frustration.  So I think it was a God thing because I was able to show her the grace of God and gave her full value for the card which she insisted I use first to make sure it was valid.  We had to wait for Josh so I got to spend some time listening and sharing with her about God's love.  I was certain it had been a meeting set up by God and I left feeling quite happy.  Marty was less impressed as he looked over all the "pretty" stuff I got and wondered where all the supplies were for behind the wall or under the floor.  I hadn't thought about that stuff.  There is a reason we are a team, I think I got a little rambunctious - again.

As I said earlier the car was also broken so we were guzzling the gas with our van making multiple trips taking people to work and practices.  I was spending every day driving more than I was home.  It was becoming ridiculous.  I remembered the excessive amount of pipe Marty bought when we were working on the upstairs bathroom because he really didn't know what we would need and the many trips to the store were getting very expensive and old.  I went through the house and collected them all.  I even wiped off the dust and found the receipts for each one.  I had over $100 to return which was perfect because the part we needed for the car was just that.  My heart soared as I drove to the store to return the pipes and get money to get the car fixed.  I was dumbfounded when the store clerk said the receipts were too old I could only get store credit.  I begged and pleaded.  She talked to her manager but alas store credit it was.  It was almost time to close and try as I might I could not find one person who would give me money for the card.  I left the store very dejected and angry.  How ironic.  I had a good cry all the way home.

Soon after I was going to my room in the dark and heard the laundry sink running at full blast.  In anger I slammed the handle down as I said, "With our water bill who would leave the water.."  I stopped mid sentence.  The handle didn't move and the sound continued.  Putting my hand under the faucet did not feel wet.  I flipped on the light and called Marty into the room.  We searched around and found a water fall running down our basement wall.  The pipe to the washer had burst and from the placement of the water we found out why our water bill was so high.  It had been leaking for quite some time.  We had to shut the water off to the whole house because there was no valve to stop it.  The next afternoon my dad came over and fixed the problem but there was no longer any water to the washer.  Out of desperation to do piles of laundry Marty put the garden hose through the window and hooked it to the washer.  It worked!

That Saturday Marty and I were trying to figure out what to do.  There was so much between the car and laundry room and just the house in general.  We had no money so it made doing anything feel impossible but sometimes God directs by not providing what we think we need.  We did the only thing we had provision for.  We went to the store and used our store credit to get the rest of the things we needed for the laundry room.  This time we went together and it was good to spend some time without the kids.  I think some time together was what we needed even more than any of the other things screaming for our attention.

The next few days a lot of stress just kept compounding from driving all day every day to being unable to pay for things because of the amount of gas costs to forgetting people or appointments and the list could go on.  I had just had enough.  I was on my way to pick up Marty, driving on a quiet country road with no one anywhere and I just lost it.  I yelled as loud as I could, "I can't do this anymore!!!  Do You even care!?  Where are You?..."  By the time I got to Marty, I was hoarse and weary.  There was no answer from Heaven.  Just silence.  But I knew that I was at the end of me.  I had done all that I knew to do.  I had tried to do all the right things.  I had asked for help but none could be given.  I had no where left to turn.  I held nothing back but poured it all out to Him who sits on the Throne of Heaven and He heard my cry.  A little while later the car was fixed and the laundry room was underway.  The problem of the water was fixed and the hose will hopefully soon be gone from our window.  The utility company gave us a small discount on the sewer part of the bill and worked out a managable payment plan for the rest.  Was God finally moving because I yelled?  No.  He was moving all along. I just couldn't see it.  I had to come to the end of myself so I could know He had this thing under His control despite how it looked to me.  I can enter into His rest knowing that or I can keep trying to make it all work myself.  It is such a hard lesson to learn and one I must easliy forget because He keeps having to teach it again and again.  But in his incredible love and patience He continues to shape and mold me even when I cry out and think it's more than I can bear.  He sees the bigger picture and He loves me enough to ignore my whining for the sake of becoming all that He intended me to be.  I just wish it didn't have to hurt so much.

2 Corinthians 12:8-10
8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.


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Patience

9/20/2012

5 Comments

 
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Patience is not a word I like today.  I feel more like a puppy who can't sit still than a dove on its nest.  Every morning cold air blasts through my kitchen window and reminds me I'm running out of time.  But I still have to wait for the mud (joint compound) to dry before I can go to the next step.  God knows all of this.  It isn't a surprise to him.  He knows every moment of my day before it even happens.  But I don't.  I worry.  I worry that it won't get done fast enough.  I worry that I won't have money to do it.  I worry that I won't be able to figure out how to do it.  I worry that by the time the house is a home all my children will have flown the nest. 

It's not like I've never been out on a limb with God before.  This should be old hat.  God is in control.  God knows and He has never failed.  But it is so easy to want to grab the reins and control things myself.  That's just it though.  I'm not the one in control.  He is and that is good.  So today while the mud dries, way too slowly, I will share with you about another project that went way too slow.  However, now its where I go to escape the stud walls, lath ceilings, and piles of mess.  It is our bathroom.

When we accepted the house we knew the first project would have to be the bathroom.  It had not been used for years because the cast iron drain had multiple holes in it.  Pete had used the awkward bathroom squished under the stairs, which was fine for one person but not nine.  We did at least put up a shower curtain for some privacy while we worked on the real bathroom.  A long story short we ended up basically gutting it, even ripping up floor boards to get to the pipes that needed to be replaced.  I can't find any pictures of the original room because they are packed somewhere in our living room (storage facility) but here are some of the earliest pictures I have. 

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This is looking in from the hallway after we put the floor back together.
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To the right is where the toilet used to be before we ripped it out. Above is just a higher view looking in from the hallway.
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This is from inside the bathroom looking toward the hallway.
It's amazing to me how little these pictures tell.  Marty moved here in April to work so I thought he should be able to get a lot done and we could at least move in with a real bathroom.  But in my desire to have it done I totally overlooked all the tiny details that were involved in what he did.  When we would return on weekends it was very frustrating for all of us because we just weren't seeing the results we wanted.  When he would tell us of what he did it seemed so trivial that tensions rose.  I wonder if that's how I am with God.  I'm not seeing the results I want so the intricate details of all that He is doing in our lives seem less than sufficient when in fact, they are the most important.  What if, just to make us happy, Marty would have hurried the process with the pipes and quickly covered them with what I wanted - a floor.  In only seconds the water damage would destroy the very thing I wanted and create a much bigger mess.  Maybe some of my tension would decrease if I would stop trying to rush and appreciate all the details that God is working out in me.

Finally we were going to put in the exhaust fan!  Again, I overlooked the "little" things.  Just put a hole in the ceiling and ta-da we have a light/fan.  Well...the box for the fan was bigger than the hole that was already there.  Ok, so make the hole bigger, right?  Yes, but that brought a flood of newly blown in insulation and a much bigger hole than we needed.  Also, in order to exhaust the bathroom we had to run a duct from the fan to the outside.  Remember the 18 inch think blanket of insulation and the over 100 degree days?  Well, I was shaking and sweating as I placed one board in front of the other crawling 15 feet across beams I couldn't see in the attic.  One wrong move and through the ceiling I would go.  Marty had a ladder on the porch roof as he drilled through the outer wall to connect the duct work.  Yeah, I discovered the hard way just how much it takes to get those "little" things done. 
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Rather large hole for the exhaust fan.
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Insulation mess. We did bag it and put it back but that wasn't easy either.
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The hole is repaired!!!
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DONE!! Seems so simple doesn't it?
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Card box made by Sandy New.
Even though I felt like all the details were impossibly slow we did eventually get to paint.  The only problem was we were all moved in and the cost of renting a truck and gas and food and tolls, etc. had drained our pockets.  Again, God in His perfect timing already had that under control, before I even knew I needed it.  When I left my job at Riddell, my friends there all got together and surprised me with an adorable box of cards filled with gift cards to Home Depot and Lowe's!  I had planned to use it for something special that I wouldn't otherwise get but at this point having a real bathroom would be pretty special.  I picked out a new shower curtain which I normally wouldn't do and used that to determine the whole look of the bathroom.  It even has scripture on it which I had originally wanted to put on the wall but I like this much better. 

The bathroom is now "done" thanks to a lot of people who worked together and gave a gift.  I would still like to do a few things with the bathroom but I will have to be patient. It's time to move on to other projects that are also a great need.  But when I get overwhelmed I go back to my bathroom and remind myself, "It can be done.  It can be done..."  So I must be patient and wait for that mud to dry and there's nothing I can do to rush it.  God has it under control and He's working out the details I don't even know about.  Ok, maybe I feel a little less like a puppy now.  Maybe I'm more of a tiger watching his prey - patiently waiting for the right moment but ever so ready to pounce when it comes.

James 1:2 - 5
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

More bathroom pictures

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Matthew helped me paint. I was very nervous about the color but I love it.
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Jared could be counted on for whatever I asked, especially if it involved power tools.
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Marty and I grouting our floor. This one has a huge life lesson but I'll share that another day.
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Looking in from the hallway. A REAL bathroom!!!
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New lights from my friends at Riddell and a newly stained cabinet.
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Just as I took a picture of our "little" trim details Victoria who was always helping with something entered.
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Noah was quite pleased to be strong enough to help Daddy bring in the new toilet.
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A little higher view. Notice the shower curtain from my friends.
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Matthew also helped with the trim. It took a lot of concentration.
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Eli just beamed when he got to help Daddy put the screws in the subfloor.
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Best Daddy in the whole world - mine. It was his knowledge and guidance that gave us the courage to tackle this huge project.
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Looking back out toward the hallway from inside our finished bathroom.
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Not to be outdone Elijah very patiently got this nail in all by himself.
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Two little sets of feet fit on one tile but not for long, I'm sure.
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Finally! You have no idea how beautiful this is to us.
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If Walls Could Speak

9/12/2012

8 Comments

 
It has been fun figuring out how to set this up and all of your encouragement has been wonderful.  The first post was actually written in March before I knew how to really do anything with it.  Since that day Marty found work here and I left work there.  We've officially moved all of our stuff here, though I can't really say we are moved in.  Our living room is a storage facility and everything else is a construction zone.  Making it our home is taking much longer than I had hoped but there is progress, as slow as it may be.  I will share some stories about all that on another day.

Today I wanted to share with you some of the history we have discovered and what an encouragement it has been to my weariness.  The best we can tell...

This house was built in 1893.  J.G.H. Stein (Marty's great grandpa) purchased it in 1908, along with surrounding property and a 2nd house next door.  He owned a bank in Stoney Ridge and another right here in Pemberville.  We found a book written in 1917 about the history of Northwest Ohio.  In it we learn that he was a man of integrity and well loved by the town.  He also regularly attended Bethlehem Lutheran.  He and his wife Anna had a son named Leonard and many years later a daughter named Laurene. 

Sometime in the 1920's due to a combination of the stock market crash and a dishonest partner he lost everything, except that he gave the property to his son.  When all was done, Leonard sold this house back to him for a dollar.  He lived in this house with his daughter and her family working across the street as the school janitor until the day he went to be with Jesus.

Laurene married Marty Wiegman and had 3 daughters:  Annette, Marlene and Suzanne (Marty's Mom).  Marlene always talked about being born in one of the bedrooms.  Since they had decided that Laurene would name the girls and Marty would name the boys he gave a boy nickname to all of his girls.  Marlene was always playing basketball in the driveway with the boys so her nickname "Pete" stuck and that is how everyone knew her.  Pete never married but took care of everyone.

When Grandma Stein was too ill to attend the wedding Richard and Annette married in her bedroom so she could be there.  Her funeral was in the parlor.   Annette went to be with Jesus when she was only 27 due to breast cancer.  Pete helped raise Annette's 2 year old son Jeff.  When Grandpa Stein became too ill to assend the stairway a tiny little bathroom was squished under the stairs.  After Laurene went to be with Jesus, Pete stayed in the family home, though she was rarely alone.  Everyone knew Pete and visited often.  She worked at Woodlane, a place for mentally and physically challenged people to be cared for and coached at a job.  She was the only one who could work with Elton and she did for many years.  I think it was because she genuinely cared about him.  Just before the accident she was working with a family who did foster care, giving the Mom a much needed break.

After the accident before the funeral a pipe in the kitchen ceiling burst and caused a great deal of damage.  It would not have been discovered except that a neighbor was coming over everyday to check on Alley Cat.  It's funny how God uses things we least expect.  17 years ago, Marty & I lived with Aunt Pete for 9 months.  I was pregnant with Kristin when Pete said she was going to get a kitten.  I really didn't want a cat around with an infant and tried to suggest that she not but she wanted that kitten and so she got Alley Cat.  We moved out soon after anyway but I find it ironic that now we have inherited Alley Cat with the house and God used her to bring the water problem to light before it could destroy the house.  In fact, Pete also had a dog named Brandy.  Brandy was with her in the accident.  It was Brandy's dog tags that gave an emergency contact to alert family.  She is now living with Marty's Mom and being loved quite well.

One thing we found when we were going through things in the house is a Bible. It has a black hard cover with a worn gold pattern.  The binding shows it was opened often.  Some of the corners look as if pages were turned again and again.  The words are written in German and I cannot read a single one but it is a treasure that brought tears to my eyes yet again.  Later I found a handwritten geneology showing that J.H.W. Heckman and C.M. Heckman came over from Germany in 1858.  Was this Bible read and loved and passed down to their children and children's children?  Did they do as it said and pray for their descendants?  From what I can tell they did and that means even way back in the 1800's we were being prayed for and this house is no accident but a gift that God has saved for us.  When we lost our home in bankruptcy 6 years ago and thought we would never own a home again; when I begged God to save our home;  when I cried as I left it, God smiled and comforted me.  He knew.  He knew that was not our home.  This was and He was saving it for us, it was not lost in bankruptcy and when all is settled we will own our home - a gift passed down from our family who loved Him and trusted him even when things looked bad.  I wonder did God comfort Great Grandpa Stein with knowing that through it all he had a home to pass down that would shelter his family for generations?  I don't know but it seems like something God would do.  He's amazing like that.  Now if we can just bring the beauty back to a very weary house.  What stories they will tell!

Isaiah 25:1 (NLT)  O LORD, I will honor and praise your name, for you are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now you have accomplished them.

Book we found from 1917

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J.G.H. Stein

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Top middle picture

House in 1917

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Pemberville Savings Bank

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House today

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German Bible

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