Friday, July 8, 2016

Joy! In the Midst of Darkness...Literally!

  Ever have one of those weeks?  It was the little things...appliances not working correctly, clients dropping off from the family business because it's the middle of summer...machines not working at the office...medical concerns with my mom...
  I was looking forward to a relaxing Thursday evening, just my husband and me. It had been hot and humid all week and we were even contemplating going out that evening for a dip in the refreshing waters of our nearby water park...when it hit.  A thunderstorm...at the noon hour.  We heard the sizzle of lightening nearby and then then house was in darkness. Okay, that's happened before. No need to be alarmed. It will be back on soon enough...
  Eleven hours later...
   Ragged from running coolers of our not so frozen food to our daughter's apartment, the office where I work, and also running food from my mom's house which is just up the block from us to my brother's house (which thankfully, is not up the block from us and they still had power), my husband and I sat down at the kitchen table trying to make believe that the candlelight between us was romantic.
  After 33 years of marriage, my husband and I love each other immensely, and we love our 'date' nights...but this night...well, was not one of those nights. We were exhausted from running here and there, juicing up our phones at our business, eating a meal at our son's apartment...and going back home to find the house still in darkness and ever growing humidity (75%) ) and heat (still hovering at 88 degrees at 9 PM)   and the dog and two cats looking at us like 'what is going on guys? Turn on the cool air!!"
  I snapped a picture, trying to be funny about the candlelight...but we were tired, dripping with sweat and really not looking forward to spending the night in the basement with the dog.
  But we did finally head to the basement at least until the lights popped back on at 10:20 and the air conditioner (poor thing) finally had the house cool enough four hours later so we could go back to our beds.
  We got up and though we did have coffee in the house, we didn't have any breakfast food (eggs, milk, butter all at our daughter's apartment) so Mike ran to the grocery to make what is probably going to be one of many trips we'll be making in the next day to replace the foods that didn't make it. He brought home eggs and muffins.
 We sat at breakfast contemplating when to begin the fetching of food from everywhere and if I would  still make it to work on time.  When it hit us.  We were very blessed, very lucky that a tree had not come through our roof, no flood waters had risen in our basement and basically, we were inconvenienced for a few hours. 
  Sometimes in the midst of our 'suffering' we forget to look on the bright side. And honestly I don't always appreciate other people trying to point out the bright side when I'm not there yet. But it was nice that we both thought of it at the same time, while sharing our breakfast coffee;  that the night could have been much worse. And as we bowed our heads to pray before eating, holding hands, we did thank the Lord for what we had. And it was good.