Insult to Injury

This process of settling in to a new home has gone about 100 times faster due to the tireless efforts of my parents. My dad has had a hand (sometimes the only hands) in painting all the rooms which have been painted aside from the office (which I did while he was tackling the living room and hallway). My mom has kept up with laundry and cooking and shopping while also helping with whatever is needed. You might be asking yourself at this point, "Then what have you been doing Gina?" But that isn't the point of this post.

The point is that today my dad was hard at work clearing the fallen trees (we felled them) and brush covering our yard when he stumbled across a bees nest. By the time he'd extricated himself, he had about five stings and had knocked his glasses off. He came in to recover and realized he hadn't just lost his glasses but both his hearing aids as well. In layers and layers of brush and pine needles.

If ever the phrase "insult to injury" applied, I think this would be it. We all went out to help, but I came back in when I got stung myself. We supposed that they were near the actual nest, so I decided to wait until Erik came back from Home Depot (our daily store) with bee killer. My parents continued looking for about 2 hours.

In the meantime, I started praying. I felt compelled to remind God of all that my dad has done this week to help us, how generous he is, and how I thought He should consider that (as though He is unaware). In times like this I go back and forth between knowing that God could work a miracle and the knowledge that He owes me nothing, the fact that He delights to give good gifts to His children and that He is more concerned with our character than our comfort. So how do I pray with confidence in that? After awhile, I stopped my theological wrestling and simply prayed, "Please God. Please please please please."

Later, I went back out to help again, getting down inches from the ground and creeping back and forth across the path my dad took. And then, I found one! It gave us all renewed hope. About 10 minutes later, my mom found the other one. There are not words for how thankful and relieved we are.

But if we hadn't found them, what then? Could we cling to joy and trust in God? I confess, it would be harder. I wish that weren't true, but it is.

For now, I'll just say thank God!!