The Lord amazes me-all the time. This has not been a good week with our youngest adopted son. The older son, on the other hand, now has a moped to get around on and a job to go to! He starts Monday as an electrician’s assistant. The younger, however, has had to be given even stricter discipline that he does not like one bit. Many that read this know that we have been trying to work with him since September 14, 2001 (date remembered because of 911), which means it will be 5 years in a few weeks.
He wants to be a man and take care of his own money (his social security from his father). The deal is, if he takes all the money, he doesn’t get to stay at our house, which is fine with him, particularly if he can talk us into being softhearted and letting him come in to take a shower-use the bathroom-get a drink-change his clothes…. Well, the last half of that sentence stopped this week. No more coming into the house-period. End of story. You would think that if he received over $600 the beginning of last week, he’d still have a little to live on this week! This is where trouble started.
At the beginning of the week, I did let him change his clothes in the bathroom that was just repainted, has a new floor, cabinet, etc., and he left the dirty clothes on the floor and cigarette butts on the vanity! That was it. No more changing in the house. A day or so later he wanted to get a drink (I told him he could use the hose outside). Later he asked if he could have some clean clothes (I put them in a plastic bag and hung them on the doorknob for him to pick up). Talk about tough love! I wonder if it was tougher on him or me! Yesterday (Saturday morning), he called and was going to sell his $1200 moped for $55. Yea, it does have about $300 of damage to it---from last week when he was mad because he thought the whole neighborhood was laughing at him and his friends were deserting him. He only broke the headlights, taillight, turn signals and pulled the part off that covers the ignition. It was already damaged underneath where he and his friends were riding it in a local swimming hole full of rocks like a dirt bike.
Anyway, we wouldn’t let him sell it (title is still in my sweetie’s name) and he was mad. He tried to take it away to sell it without the key (it doesn’t run well right now) and I told him he hadn’t finished paying it off yet (still owes us $300—taken out of his check for the next six months). He couldn’t sell it unless it was for more than he owed on it—just like a bank loan, so he needed to leave it right where it was. He called me some colorful names and told me to eat parts of his anatomy. I only said that because it will make it more understandable that I then told him he could not come on our property or he will be trespassing. If he wants anything he can call and we will take it to the road or he may have a policeman come with him to get his stuff. He told me to burn his stuff.
It was a wonderful Saturday morning, if you couldn’t tell already. I was honestly afraid of what he might do-during the day, later that evening, throughout the night. Thankfully nothing happened. We did hear a big bang we thought was a pounding on the door, but decided it must have been a firecracker. This morning our house wasn’t on fire and our tires are not slit, so there are blessings!
Speaking of blessings, there are a couple smiles and encouragements the Lord has given us in the past 24 hours…nothing to do with our son, but little things to know He is here and He is in control. The smiles were sweet. The one given to my sweetie was when he took the dog down to a local lake. When they got out, the dog shook off all the excess water and some little girls nearby started singing “shake your bootie!” to which the dog gleefully complied and wagged her tail also.
The one given to me was one that the enemy could have used to make me cry, but the Lord had me laugh---almost too hysterically. I had some bananas that were getting those black spots on them, so I decided to make banana bread. I hadn’t ever done this in my bread machine, so I “assumed” that it would work the same as regular bread, just put it on the quick bread setting. So I put in the ingredients and set the machine to quickbread and started it. It was odd to me that it didn’t take as long as it should…and when the setting went down to 0, It seemed like it wasn’t quite done yet. I was told a neighbor had some wonderful things for us from his garden, so I was thinking “How wonderful! I think I will take him part of this banana bread!” Unhuh.
I took the bread out and made sure that the sides were not sticking to the pan. I turned it over onto a plate and voila! Out came all the ingredients, the bananas and eggs were cooked oddly together, the flour all on the bottom (and spilling onto the floor, chair, me, etc.). I started to giggle. I couldn’t do anything about it, just learn from the experience that quickbreads need to be mixed before putting them in the bread machine. The hysterical laughter came when my sweetie came to investigate and took a bite of the banana/egg mixture. The look on his face before he ran to spit it out in the garbage was priceless. He did tell me later that it wasn’t that funny, but it was to me. You can’t tell me that the Lord doesn’t have a sense of humor!
The Lord also gave us an extra blessing in His word this morning in Psalm 37. The NASB goes like this:
1 Do not fret because of evildoers,
Be not envious toward wrongdoers.
2 For they will wither quickly like the grass
And fade like the green herb.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate[1][Or feed securely or feed on His faithfulness ] faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.
7 Rest[2][Or Be still ] in the LORD and wait patiently[3][Or longingly ] for Him; …
This Psalm just gave us extra peace this morning. May it give you peace also!
