"rain, rain don't go away, oh we need you this dry and dusty day"... or at least thats what i thought

hey hey hey, im back after another spanish assignment.... well, what do you know, right? So, in desperate need of a new blog i figured i just spill everything in my brain. well, not everything, that would ruin my life and yours....

anyway, my house is trashed. well, sort of. my house WAS trashed... partially flooded is more like it. all that lovely rain we all loved so much for new mexico decided it didn't want to stay out of my house, or my room to be more exact! the night before my trip to colorado the rain seeped in through the wall and saturated my carpet spilling into the room next to mine and into the hallway as well! to make matters worse, there was so much rain that my dad sucked out (yes, sucked out) with a carpet cleaner 15 GALLONS of water.... thats so much water.... anway, thank God for people from church and friends, because without the Moore's theres no way all that stuff out of my room would have been moved so quickly and nicely and with so much love. not to mention, i was on my pretty way to denver.... mm, perfect timing.

so, i came back from colorado and there was my room, with only my bed and a dresser and the ugliest brown floor panelling stuff you have ever seen... ever. i dont even think that this stuff was cool in its time. so, it turns out the water had ruined the coner of the hallway (which is wood floors) as well as the carpet in two of the back rooms. well, the hallway wood is connected to the wood in my parents bedroom. the only room in the back of the house that wasn't affected was my dear brother jason's room. lucky him.

now, this is all coming at the same time that we decided to redo the front of the house and relandscape the front yard. again, perfect timing. actually, this may have proved to be more of a blessing than a curse afterall. not wanting to waste the moment, we decided, what the heck, we might as well redo all we can and just get it over with! so we repained all the rooms back there, we got brand new wood floors in all FOUR rooms of the house and the hallway, fixed the problem so that the new wood floors gracing my room aren't ruined by another freak i-thought-i-was-in-new-mexico type flood.

needless to say, we had to get all the furniture out of the back of the house. oh....boy. so, all the stuff from the back 4 rooms is now piled (yes, its actually piled) in the living room, the dining room, and the garage. my little brother and i have been sleeping on our matresses in front of the tv for the past few nights, and my parents have been having fun moving their matress all over the place.

alright, so thats all the back story, right? here's what i've learned, because God knows you can't go through something like this and NOT learn a blessed thing. well, i suppose you could, but then it'd just be miserable. alright, anyway, i had been praying for a few weeks now for God to start teaching me something, to make me grow, to turn me to Him... all that. well, i didn't quite expect Him to do it like this! living in a room with only your bed and your dresser (and no carpet) starts to make you realize how much stuff you have that you really DON'T need. shucks, even now as I've been living in the living room, i think I've only had to go back to my closet once or twice. even typing this now makes me realize that even when it seemed like i had the bare minimum, i STILL had more than enough. (ha, and we complain that God doesn't bless us enough, or give us what we want...)

amidst all of this, God decided that this wasn't all. without going into detail, lets just say that if you ask God to make you grow and change you, be careful because He might take you seriously. lets pray that He does.

i'm almost ashamed to say that i wish i had had a better attitude about it all. yes, i've taken it in stride for a lot of it, but at the same time, God is looking down saying, you know what, this isn't as bad as it could be, but i DO still want you to grow. maybe i can keep taking it in stride, knowing that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces hope, and hope does NOT DISAPPOINT. (Romans 5:3-5) and sure, this isn't suffering where your life is on the line or you are being physically hurt, or even suffering for the sake of Christ, but it is a test of how we handle situations that we don't like or that we didn't expect. no, i haven't handled the situation perfectly, but maybe in the comming days, where we are out of our house as all the work is finished and it is even nicer than before, instead of thanking God that i'm american and that life is so grand, maybe we can thank God that He watches over His children, hears our prayers, and tests us even in small ways somehow for His glory.

"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and characer produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5 ESV