Now it’s not one, but two broken shutters
Ever have one of those days? Of course you have, we all have. Well yesterday was it for me. Here’s some of the things I vented about to my church prayer partners:
When I came home from the US, one shutter in the living room was broken (in the closed position), and I haven’t been able to get ahold of my landlord to get it fixed. So I wrote him a note about the broken shutter and stuck it in the envelope with my rent check. Now the other big shutter in the same room is broken and I still haven’t been able to reach my landlord. He may be out of the country because he also hasn’t cashed my rent check.
Then I had a bunch of emails from my accountant saying that I owe a bunch of money in taxes. I struggled (in my dark room) to get the taxes all worked out, forms printed, signed, scanned, and sent back to the accountant.
Then I had an issue and a misunderstanding with a missionary friend. I am a missionary to missionaries, so relationships are crucially important. But no matter what I said or what I did, it only seemed to make the situation worse. I may have lost a friend!
Then while I was struggling in the dark with my taxes, and the misunderstanding, I was also doing laundry. And I found that my houseguests had done laundry and hung things out. Some things were so wet that I had to run them through a spin cycle in the hope that they would ever dry. Now where to hang my own laundry? So I went to work, taking down the things that were dry, re-hanging the other things, and creating space for my own laundry.
When I went to close the mosquito screen after re-hanging the super-wet towels, and it ripped almost in half. That’s going to cost me €100 – 150! I’ve got to have a good screen on the kitchen window or the house will be full of mosquitoes.
This is one of those days when I feel like I’m almost bleeding money, trapped here in the dark. I just feel so angry and frustrated that I don’t know whether to scream or cry. And of course all this comes on the heels of that powerful encouragement I got in Turin.
To be honest, just writing it out helped. After all, writing is how I process my emotions. Writing is also a form of escape for me[1].
But then one of my houseguests returned to the house. She saw the screen and leaped into action, sewing the tear with fishing line. And it looks like the fix is going to hold very well. And I realized that the landlord will eventually return home, read my note, and get the shutter fixed.
It’s not the prettiest fix, but it looks like it will work
Then I heard a marvelous teaching by Jonathan Cahn, based on Exodus 31:1-3, in which God put His Spirit on Bezalel to do all sorts of crafts necessary to build the Tabernacle and all its furnishings. He said to ask for the anointing to do the things you need to do, no matter what it is that you need to do: computer work, creative work, relationships, whatever it is.
So I did just that. I told God that since He has given me the responsibility for this house, I need the anointing to manage it properly. And since He has given me the responsibility for this ministry to missionaries, I need the anointing to manage the relationships well. And since He provides for me (I live by faith), I need the anointing to make money, not lose it (and certainly not bleed it!).
With that prayer, I immediately did begin to feel much better about all these situations. I’m still sitting in the dark as I write this, but now I know that I don’t have to embrace the dark. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine! God is good!
[1] I had three concurrent journals and a book in process when my marriage was falling apart. I wrote for five to seven hours a day every day for over a year. Most of that went into the trash once the divorce was final and it was time to get on with my life.
Walking By Faith in Europe 