when it started pouring, God sent a rainbow

“When it rains, it pours…”

Such has been the story of our lives for the past 3 weeks….

I guess it all began the morning that I spilled coffee on my Macbook computer. (Shalom, our bird, was misbehaving. When I went to smack at him, my elbow hit my coffee cup.) After trying for several hours and then overnight to air it out, the computer was still malfunctioning. I was happy to find out that we had a full-service warranty on the computer and that repairs would be “free.” I dropped the computer off at the Best Buy Geek Squad, without a 2nd thought. I won’t go into all the details, but that was just the beginning of the hassle. Miscommuncations, terrible service, multiple unreturned phonecalls, a trip to a store an hour away, some money, and two and a half weeks later I got a new computer and my old harddrive back. During that two weeks I was without access to all of our financial data, my quicken files, our tax files (which I had yet to finish), and my newly-formed budget excel file which we were using to track all of our expenditures!

Overlapping with the “computer saga” has been the “plumbing saga.” The short story is that the main sewer line in front of our house is made out of clay pipes, and tree roots get in and clog the main. When that happens our sewer backs up, and because we are both downhill from and siamese-lined into our neighbors sewer lines, all of their “crap” backs up into our sewer line as well. We have a cleanout on our driveway which was leaking raw sewage and human waste from both our and our neighbor’s house onto our driveway. We were terribly upset, and for a day or so even seriously talked about breaking our lease and moving on-post. It took about 5 days to get resolved and throughout that time we were partially without any ability to flush toilets and shower. (Not too good for a pregnant woman who is peeing about every 10 minutes!) The situation is now resolved, after two different plumbing contractors, snakejobs, and a visit from our landlords. Thankfully, Russ was able to handle most of everything for me, and he is following up with the health department and the sewer company to try to ensure that maintenance is regularly scheduled so that this can’t happen again.

Then there was the “lawnmower saga.” Last October, shortly after buying a new lawnmower to start taking care of our home, Russ hit a tree root in the front yard and bent the lawnmower blade. Obviously with winter, and then with everything else going on, taking care of the lawnmower wasn’t top priority. But now grass is growing, and it needs to be cut. We thought that a trip to Home Depot to get the blade replaced would be simple. But alas, putting on a new blade didn’t fix the problem and we have since realized that the whole shaft is probably bent! (It’s now in the shop.)

Financially we have just been hit with one thing after another between the computer, the lawnmower, and some car repairs last month!

Over the past few days I have found myself wondering why we keep getting hit…when it will ever end!!!

This morning, I set out thinking it would be a marvelous day. All that bad stuff behind us…now I can just relax right? Three hours later after getting a doctors appointment time wrong, having a hard time finding parking at the hospital, Russ forgetting his ID, me going home to get it and realizing that he still had the house keys, driving back to base, getting sick to my stomach…it just seemed like it kept getting worse. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry…I chose to laugh, but I definitely wanted to cry!

That’s when God gave me a rainbow…

But before I tell you about God’s rainbow, I have to give you a little bit of background. Most of you know that our baby is due to be born on or around September 1st. What I haven’t shared with too many people is the fact that Russ had scheduled brigade-wide pre-deployment training “the whole month of August.” Up til now we didn’t know the specific dates, or if there was any possibility that Russ would be able to either not go, or go and come home early. In the Army it’s definitely not looked upon well to go around asking for favors, so we hadn’t really pursued trying to bug people for more information, and didn’t plan to until training time got closer. Russ had asked a few people, but no one really could give him an answer other than “you’re going!” Well today, without seeking anyone out or asking for anything, the battalion commander pulled Russ aside in the hallway to say hello and ask him about the baby. He told him without a 2nd thought “You’re not going.” Russ tried to explain that he wasn’t asking for favors and wondered if he could still go and come home early or something and the commander said, “No, with a September 1st due date you aren’t going.”

When I met Russ for lunch, and he gave me the news, I started crying. I didn’t expect this at all, and God was so good to us to give us such a gift, especially after everything we have been going through the last few weeks. I don’t take it for granted at all. In many ways I feel badly, as I have so many friends whose husbands will be gone the month of August. I hope that if any of you are reading this you understand that we aren’t gloating about getting out of training. We just feel blessed that, barring any unforseeable problems, Russ WILL be here to see our baby be born!! Up til today we didn’t have that guarantee…

Anyway, thanks to all of you who have offered advice and encouragement these past few weeks as we have gone through these problems.

It may continue to rain, but at least God has given us a rainbow…