Wednesday, November 6, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Home on Lincoln
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?
Our apartment sink backed up this weekend and on Monday morning our maintenance engineer Scott came over, put on his black gloves, and began cleaning it out. He used two snakes and wished he had a camera to poke down in the hole.
What surprised all of us were the skinny noodles that came up out of the pipe. Someone in one of the apartments in our building decided it would be all right to wash them down the drain. “No! Just put water down that drain, nothing else!” Scott exclaimed. Scott is well-liked in our community. “People don’t seem to realize I’m the one who has to clean all this up. They think the manager will just call in some plumber they don’t know from Adam. But the manager does not. She just gives me the work order.”
We gave Scott an apple turnover and a box of Nerd gummies. But then when he left he forgot to take them with him. Maybe I’ll see him tomorrow and put them straight into his hands.
One thing we ask of the Lord; this is what we seek, to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and gaze on his beauty. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.
Each time we head back to Illinois, I kind of hold my breath wondering if our house is still OK. It was built around 1915 and moved to its present Lincoln Avenue, Urbana address in 1945. This was the second (and last) house we owned, and when we moved from Waynesville in 1989 it was solid and well-maintained. We’ve done an up-and-down job of keeping that up.
In 1991 we built a boy shed complete with cable tv, as well as a gazebo to beautify the backyard. For years we raised chickens back there, ate and shared their eggs.
Then in the hands of Rick, Ron, and several other construction geniuses, our attic was transfomed into a beautiful master bedroom with sewing space, library, jacuzzi and skylight, topped with a windowed cupola. In 2017 we remodeled our counseling office and waiting room.
We replaced the furnace, and added beautiful counters, sink and appliances to the kitchen. We replaced the windows, soffits and much of the siding. Marc and I refinished the gazebo and shed, and then added a patio with chairs and cool paintings on barn wood we found at a garage sale.
Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? But everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.
We did manage to pay off the mortgage, and the second mortgage, but during our family’s growing years we focused much more on being with the kids and helping them move along into college, which all three of them managed splendidly. All three had paper routes before that, and Chris even kept his route through much of his college career.
In the meantime our house aged, and we did too. Now living half-time or more in Austin, we don’t watch that 110-year-old house, we don’t notice what happens day by day. Marc lives nearby and checks in nowand then, and our neighbor George mows the grass and is vigilant. But still. It’s always a question: what will we find when we get back? Especially in the winter.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
We pray. We pray some more. In Austin we are very grateful that our apartment does not call for the kind of maintenance and replacement costs our house required of us. And we are grateful for Scott!
So then, in every way, even when in Illinois our pipes froze and the electric line was down and the tree fell on the roof, at various times while we were gone, I say in every way we are thankful for God’s provision, and for that comment Jesus made to the crowds about renouncing their possessions to become his disciple. We want to keep on doing that as best we can for the rest of our lives.
God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work. Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life.
(Philippians 2, Psalm 27, 1 Peter 4, Luke 14)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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