I got a bigger box, do you have a larger size?

“So, whatever box you have put God into…. trust me, He doesn’t fit. He’s way way bigger than you think. He keeps blowing my socks off when I turn around and find that he has once again popped out of that box I thought I had him in, and BAM … I need a bigger box”

Soooo, that was a quote from my blog a few weeks ago on November 7th. And, I had NOOOOOOO idea what was coming next. NONE! God answers prayers, even the “groanings of our heart” when we don’t know what to say.

On November 7th I was feeling tremendous tension in my marriage, we were looking for a counselor. Today things are going great after a weekend away at a marriage conference and a renewed commitment and feelings of tenacity to making things work and to compromise and find solutions and to put the emphasis back on each other and on our relationship and off of ourselves or the kids.

On November 7th I didn’t know we were going to start thinking about buying a house. I didn’t think it was a possibility. Yet, here I am on November 28th, and we are going to be closing on a house in two weeks! And not just any house that we could find that fit our admittedly low budget for the area. No, we found a house that feels PERFECT for us!  The house inspection went through with flying colors, and not only that, but the original builders spent extra to upgrade on lots of little items that mean a lot now, 27 years after it was built. Like, copper plumbing, insulation under the house, extra insulation in the attic. Stuff that lasts over the long term instead of what’s affordable but will fail. We went looking for a house that we could live in for at least 5 years in order for the kids to be out of school, and we found a house that at this moment I feel I could live in for the rest of my life.

Our house has 3 bedrooms (necessary since we have 3 teenagers: 2 girls and a boy) and 2 full baths, a sunken living room, a small family room (soon to be our computer room), a dining room, and a nicely laid out kitchen (though small). It has a two-car garage with shelves built in on one side for organization. It has a great newish hot tub and a nice big deck with a bench built in all around the edge. It has enough land on the bedroom side of the house that we could actually build on to the house very easily without having to go UP, if we wanted to and could afford it. The rooms already have been painted in nice colors. I’m pretty sure the kids will want to paint their rooms because they aren’t the right colors for them, but they are currently nice colors, just not what we’ll probably keep. We got to keep the refrigerator and the washer and dryer. And, my mom loaned us enough money to put a down payment on the house AND pay off some credit cards AND buy new furniture for the living room and dining room, and all at 4% interest over 15 years, which if you’ve had to borrow money for anything other than school loans you will know is an AMAZING deal.

I CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!! What an incredible Christmas this will be, regardless of what presents show up under the tree.
I am so grateful, I am overwhelmed with the incredibleness of it all.

Last week I was limping around on a sprained foot. I went to the doctor and she couldn’t do much other than recommend icing it 4x a day. Then I went to my small group that night and they prayed for healing. Then I went to my chiropractor and he worked on it and it felt much better, but still hurt. Then two days later, it stopped hurting. Not lessened, stopped. My chiropractor says that in the area that he could feel was sprained, it’s now fine. There is no sign of a sprain. Natural Healing or Spiritual Healing? I don’t know, but I’m happy to be walking around without the pain.

I used to think Spiritual healing was a crock of you know what. A bunch of bogus crap to bilk people out of their money. But in the last two years I have seen numerous (several, not MANY) acts of healing coming from prayer. Mind over matter? Psychological placebo effect? or God healing today as he was said to heal in the Bible many times throughout thousands and thousands of years. I don’t know. I choose to believe in God’s healing by now. Not that he heals all who ask for it, but that he CAN heal.

Conan O’ Doyle’s fictional character Sherlock Holmes’ theory says:
   When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.
I can see some problems with this theorem, yet it resonates for me in mysterious ways. The mind over matter and placebo effects are not impossible, but neither is God’s healing.  Whether you believe in God or not, that doesn’t stop his ability to heal you. I believe that God is still “in the Miracle business” as Don Piper says.

I should probably start working today and stop philosophizing. Have a great day if you see this, and I hope that God blesses you in some entirely unforeseen way that will bring you joy and peace.