Thank you Lord

     There have been several years in the past when I woke up on Thanksgiving day and wondered what I was supposed to be thankful for. I remember the year Sharon was diagnosed with cancer the day before Thanksgiving and our world was crashing around our heads. We had 2 sons who were not even in school yet and we were told there is no cure. I remember the year our cattle were dying and the realization was sinking in we were not going to survive financially. There were other years of less trauma, but still left me reeling by the morning of Thanksgiving day. So I understand if you are struggling right now and calling out to God, "hey, God I don't get it, I am in trouble here and where are You?" 

     This year I am in the land of plenty. God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams. Matthew who was 2 years old when Sharon was diagnosed is 22 years old and Sharon is still here. God knows more than doctors. She is the light of my life and God has blessed me by leaving her right here with me. (I sure hope she feels the same way)

     God has allowed me to lead worship services just about every week for 12 years. There is a great joy in sharing the Word of God.

And now Matthew is in seminary and taking it up a notch

God has blessed us with our children.

All of them knowing that Jesus' sacrifice is the gate to eternal life with God. What greater blessing could a father ask for.

     God has given us a wonderful house to live in nestled in the pine trees. I know that God picked this house out for us and took us down a tortuous path to get us here. Sharon wrote about how that happened on this blog a couple of years back. 

     God has blessed us financially to the point where I can compare our life to the widow's jar of oil that did not run empty. God just keeps giving more and more. I am not sure why God has blessed us beyond measure. It is assuredly not because of what I have done or who I am, because I can say with Paul that I am the worst of sinners. I can honestly say that on my own I can do nothing.

     Someone asked me once 11 years ago, when all around us looked black, if I felt like Job. The man in the Bible who lost everything. Went from wealth to absolute poverty. I answered,"no, Job got it all back, I will be poor the rest of my life." Well now I know that is not true. God has given it all back and piled on more, and looking back over the last few years I have to confess, it was not me making investments grow and filling bank accounts. It was the hand of God pouring out earthly blessings to supplement the spiritual blessings that are so much more valuable.

     So it is Thanksgiving day 2017 and I am not writing this to say, hey look at me. I am writing this to say God has blessed me even though I don't deserve any of it. That is a visible sign of Grace, undeserved favor. If you are reading this and you also are in the land of plenty spiritually or physically, remember to whom God gives much, much is expected. Join me in sharing the wealth God has given, both spiritual and physical. Come join me in sharing the gospel with those you meet. There is no greater joy than seeing an unbeliever come to faith. Come join me in caring for the needy in your life. Yea this one will drive you crazy at times, but just keep telling God "be in control of all you have placed in my care and use it to build Your kingdom" and God will show you who to help and when to give.

     May every day of the coming year be a day of Thanksgiving for you.

Are we making progress yet?

Sometimes you get to the end of the week and you have to ask yourself just exactly what did I accomplish this week. That is when it really helps that you have been taking pictures with your phone

Here is the starting point 2 weeks back

Here is where the room was at on Friday evening. It is actually starting to look livable. And I did not smash any fingers installing this floor. Although I will have to admit I started it on Thursday afternoon and I was fighting every plank to get them to lock. I did a bunch of other stuff on Friday because I did not want to go back to fighting this floor. Mid afternoon I finally went back to the floor and was having a terrible time getting the planks to lock when it suddenly occurred to me. Hey dummy this is Tarkett floor, where is your 10 inch piece of 2x4. I went and cut a piece off the junk pile outside the house and the floor just started locking perfectly. ( if you are wondering you smack the side of the plank with the 2x4 and they fit snuggly into place) I think I am getting old when I forget those short cuts. (I also lost 2 pair of gloves this week, did find one pair on Saturday though. I had laid them down in our storage garage).

This is the living room looking to the east 2 weeks ago. 

Here is the same room looking west after Micah was done with it today. 

When we bought the house both Sharon and Micah said the kitchen counter top had to go. I had told Micah I was thinking about tiling it. His response was "does any one do that?"

Tuesday I stripped off the old Formica top 

And prepped it for tile. Wednesday morning I mentioned to Sharon that I was going to use the tile we had left from another project on the counter. Hey free counter top. Sharon was not amused. Her comment, I believe was "you know I hate tiled counter tops" 

Ah, but you know how it is. I was alone at the house. That was the first mistake for those who did not want a tiled counter. 

I had 3 boxes of tile in storage, that was just gathering dust and needed to be used. No one had thrown those out, so that was their second mistake.

Personally I think it turned out just fine.

And I am willing to bet no one is going to redo it either. I did the labor, Third mistake. Strike three, I win!!

And then there was Monday's project. When we bought the house the owner told us the basement drain was plugged. I had Cody come to try to open it. He gave up after he found the trap was filled with cement. Hammer drill and a chisel to break out 8 inch thick concrete. Now that is more fun than a man should be allowed to have on a Monday afternoon.

Well lookee there, a brand new basement drain. I even wisely left the cover on the new drain that is there to keep idiots like me from getting concrete in the new drain till I had it all troweled in.

As I write this at 7 pm on Saturday, Patrick is putting up sheet rock and taping the bathroom ceiling and walls. I know when you look at this picture you ask "why would Royce want those art deco walls changed?" Tenants can be so picky sometimes. Patrick asked me on Wednesday if I had any work for him. He was just walking by and stopped to see if we needed any labor. I said no and then he said, "I do sheet rock taping and texturing".  Bingo, those are magic words. Come on, buddy I have a bathroom to show you. I picked up the sheet rock this morning and he wanted to do the work tonight so he could texture the walls on Monday and get paid. Said he needs the money. 

He told me I would be impressed with the work done when I saw it tomorrow morning. I told Patrick I wouldn't see it in the morning because it was Sunday and I was going to church. I think that was way outside of the norm for Patrick. As I was driving home I thought the only difference between me and Patrick is, God has blessed me. 

That was brought home to me this week when I met Frank in Walmart. Frank asked me how many tenants owed us money. I said none. Frank looked at me and said "God has really blessed you hasn't He?

Yea, God has really blessed us and every day I wonder why. May your next week be as productive and blessed as my past week has been.

fixing a few things

Sharon was asked last week if we could put a ramp on a house for a student in a wheel chair. Neither the tenant nor the owner of the house were in a position to build a ramp. 

The deck we attached the ramp to was not exactly level and standing straight. On Sunday I asked Marvin if he would be willing to help me build a deck on Tuesday. Marvin is only 89 years old and likes to keep busy.

We built the ramp Tuesday morning. I had to remind Marvin occasionally that we did not need to be perfectly straight and level because we were attaching the ramp to a deck that was not straight and level. We just started stepping back and eyeballing it to see what it looked like. If it looked somewhat level to us, that is what we went with

 It really pained me not to put spindles on the ramp instead of just boards on the side but I am not sure just how long the boy in the wheelchair will be living there, and a ramp not quite up to my standards is much better than no ramp at all.

Last week Friday Micah tore the carpeting out of house we had just purchased. He saw the hard wood floors underneath, and was sure we could get the paint off and refinish the floors. My question was who is this we. I know how this one would play out. I would be on my knees trying to get the old paint off the varnish and then putting on a new coat of varnish. Micah would be somewhere in Pella.

Sounds like a good idea if you can get dad to do the work. Notice the laminate flooring boxes in the corner? Yea, I'll return those as soon as I see Micah working on cleaning the floors, until then the plan is, they are going down, and its' on the schedule for next week so my guess is it is new floors  cover the past mistakes of others.

I spent my morning pulling up tack strips from the old carpeting. I hate pulling up tack strips. They are filled with tacks sticking up (hey, maybe that is why they are called tack strips. ya think?) and I am always bound to prick my fingers. I really hate it when they are nailed into hardwood floors. I really, really hate it when some fool put 2 nails every inch to hold the tack strip in place. See the above photo. That was a real joy. Most of the strip came out in tooth pick sized pieces.

Most of the time our lives are kind of like that deck we attached a ramp to, the floors under the carpeting and the tack strips. Our lives are not level and they are starting to come apart. When you look underneath our facade we are covered with ugly spots that shouldn't be there and are going to take some work to get rid of. When God tries to pry up the old to replace it with His ways, we have the old firmly nailed in place. 

God takes our broken lives and makes them useful if we will let Him. He comes and covers over the spots and makes us new, and if we let him he will take those sins we have such a firm grip on and will pry them away from us and throw those sins out of our lives. God only fixes us when we submit and allow God to be in control. I'm working on that. How about you?

Darkest before the Dawn

We took title to a house on Tuesday. We are now in the stage I call the sow's ear stage. You know the old saying turning a sow's ear into a silk purse. I think it is supposed to be "you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse". Most of the houses we have bought have looked like a sow's ear when we purchase them.

The deconstruction stage takes about as long as the construction. When we start I am often thinking this thing is a disaster and there is no way we will ever turn it into a livable house. We quite often end up with houses that elderly people have lived in. I do understand why they stay in their houses longer than they should and I would not want anyone to move to a home they are not familiar with when they are comfortable living at "home". But the value of a house falls quite quickly when there are no updates or even fixes.

Sometimes walls need to be totally taken apart and sometimes the cracks in the plaster have not been attended to.

sometimes there are interesting "fixes" that need to be rectified

Micah carried out refuse on Friday and piled it behind the house. The former owners have asked to be able to take anything they want to keep out of our discard pile. My reply was why would you want to save it, it has no value. Their reply was "you don't want to throw away stuff you might be able to use."

I look at my life and think it is a lot like a house rehab. It often has to get a lot worse before I see the error of my ways and clean up my act. I have often lived too long doing things a certain way even though I would be better off moving on. There is usually a lot of garbage that needs to be carried out and thrown out and once thrown out it needs to be let go permanently. The junk in our lives really has no further use. If I throw it out though that would be a problem because then everyone might see all the garbage I have been hiding inside of me.

Sometimes our lives are just a mess and looking nasty on the inside.

If we submit to God and say, "please take over and do it Your way" the end result is so much better. There might be a some pain between surrender and change. 

All the fixtures of your life might need to be torn out and replaced.

But the end result is so much better than when we are trying to do it on our own and hanging onto the garbage in our lives.

I love my new toy. We only buy Dewalt and Bostich tools because we think they are the best. Here's the thing, if we submit to God and let Him clean up our lives and lead the way, He only gives us the best. Just ask me when we meet, I will tell you how much God has blessed us since I have given up control and said, "Hey God you take the lead, I am here just to follow."