We have baseboards...

I've done a lot of soul-searching over the last few days about the house and repairs and Dean, our contractor... And I remembered the things I promised when all of this began, I think. It has been so very, very long now that I lost sight of our goals and priorities.

When Katrina destroyed the house almost eighteen months ago - we agreed that God wanted us to learn from the experience. We accepted that He had His reasons for taking so much away... and believed that He would take care of us. That was the source of our patience back then. Little by little He gave us so much. Through our insurance settlement, FEMA emergency money, kind folks from all over helping out in His name, and the miracle that is the Homeowner's Assistance Program -- we have escaped ruin. We promised that this house would forever belong to Him.. and that whatever repairs we made would be for His glory rather than our own.

Yet, just like the ungrateful human being I am... As soon as things start to get a little more comfortable - as soon as the end is in sight - my patience wears thin and I start forgetting the lesson and the promises I made.

My blog readers know just how angry I was about our contractor and the slow pace of repairs... and the movement of signs and just about everything else. At the same time, however, I had this nagging voice booming in the back of my head saying "Patience.. patience.. remember patience?" I kept telling that voice to be quiet but it never listened to me. This weekend I finally gave in and prayed about it.

It's so strange how we can pray every day - and, therefore, feel as if we have never stopped praying... Yet sit down one day and pray with our hearts and realize immediately that we've been fooling ourselves all along.

This weekend was real prayer. Not whining, complaining prayer. Not selfish 'okay so I'm doing what you want - what gives?' prayer. Real prayer - as in: "I give up. You take care of it."

Dave and I are big C.S. Lewis fans.. and we have copies of the Chronicles of Narnia scattered throughout the house at all times, so it was not all that odd that I had picked up a copy of "Prince Caspian" late one night over the weekend and started idly thumbing through it to pass the time until I felt sleepy. I found myself at the part of the story when the children had been enduring many hardships in the wilderness during their search for the prince. They had little to eat and it was cold and they were sleeping on the hard ground night after night... but they were doing Aslan's bidding. Then they encountered the green lady and the silent knight - and she promised them great feasts and warm beds when they made it to the city of giants. From that point on they lost sight of all they were to do. They found everything unbearable... they argued and complained... and they missed every sign that Aslan sent to them.

And that's how my prayer was answered.

We have baseboards... Lots of baseboards! "Bob" and "Slim" installed and awful lot of them Monday and we're now only missing a few here and there where other work has to be done first.

Yesterday the Blossman guy showed up a day early with our fireplace trim. After about an hour and a half of drilling and banging - he finally took the screen door part of the kit back to the shop with him and promised to order another... The doors didn't line up correctly and we're considering this to be a factory defect. He did hang the arched front in place which we removed about an hour after he left. Not only did he simply not install at least two pieces of the kit for some reason... but it just so happens that I was right and the tile needs to be installed before the trim kit goes on. Thankfully, he did not charge us for installation.

We called Dean immediately to let him know that the fireplace is now ready for tile - and then we made a run for Lowe's in Gautier to pick up a few extra boxes of the marble to allow for cuts. I'm guessing since I missed the tub surround by seven tiles that I probably did the same thing with the fireplace.

Someone might be here today to start tiling then... Might. And I'm ready.