What I wanted to preach...

A few weeks ago I preached on Mark 7:24-38.. the Syrophoenician Woman who wanted Jesus to heal her daughter of demons.. Jesus gave his weird response of "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Huh? The woman answered, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs..." Then because of her response, Jesus healed this woman's daughter.

It's a weird text, and I wanted to preach about how it's not fair that Jesus gave in to this woman's persistence and cleverness..while not to other reqeusts. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy this woman's daughter was healed. Quite happy. But what's the deal with this "clever response gets the healing"? Many of us have been persistently praying for crumbs of God's grace for years, and even resorted to clever responses, yet to no avail... Admittedly, we receive grace and mercy in other ways.. and I don't want to seem ungrateful. Because I am grateful for God's provision in numerous ways-Jim, my family, good friends, a job I enjoy, a house, the best dog in the world, etc. The list goes on. Truly. I am very fortunate. But I am also tired of begging for crumbs, crumbs that are not bad things to beg for. I'm not talking here about petty things like, "help me to ace my test, even though I didn't study." I'm talking about "God, help us to get pregnant.." or "God, please let Connie overcome cancer" or "God, please provide a good husband for my friend." Is this too much to ask? This is what I wanted to preach.

After my sermon, someone shared with me about a horrible situation in which someone is dying... She said she doesn't want to settle for the spiritual healing, or God's presence in ways we can't always see.. she wants God to intervene in obvious and tangible ways: she wants the main person in this situation to be healed. Physically. I completely agree with her. I told her that while I wanted to preach on how I don't understand what God's doing anymore, I just couldn't .. I couldn't preach on that, because I was concerned that too many of my recent sermons ("recent"= past year or two!) have dealt with those issues of faith... And so I had to be a little more optimistic in my sermon this time.

Don't worry, I was honest and believed every word I preached. But I'm caught in this strange spiritual place that has become home... knowing that God can work good out of any situation, but wanting God to start making some situations good to begin with... I want to scream, "I don't get it! It's not fair!" Why is God continuing to answer our prayers in others' lives, and not in ours? Why do good people who are needed on earth die? Why, when the fertility journey has already been too long and totally unbearable, does God then prolong the adoption process even longer? Haven't I given God enough clever responses?

I don't know.

Update

It's been ages, it seems.

Camp Cardboard has come down. Hallelujah! The guys have their rooms back, the living room is almost back-to-normal (we just need to clean/organize), and the basement remains dry at this point. We keep crossing our fingers.

We went to Chicago a bit ago, for a Cubs game.. we took Wich and Sho, and it was a great game to attend--once the Cubs rallied. They played so horribly for the first few innings, it was painful. The beer guy was walking around offering to sell cases to people who needed some support because the Cubs were playing so badly. But we saw the Cubs tie it up with the Dodgers, and we left in the 8th inning, because it was late.. but we listened to them win on the radio-11 innings! That was fun. Who would have guessed that by the end of summer '06, Cathy would love baseball!!

Sunday School has started at church... Fall is here. Along with that came colder weather. I'm still working on finding my cool-weather clothes, and switching out my summer ones.

Last weekend I was at Covenant Harbor (yay!) with women from our church and from the Central Conference, at the Womens' Retreat. I love these retreats, not only because of location, speaker, meeting others... but because groups who attend together usually bond, act silly, let their hair down and laugh a lot.

Today I need to do some work (calls and emails, work on church website, worship prep, etc.), but also some home-work.. continuing projects, organizing, and generally putzing around.

Camp Cardboard Haiku

Hard rain moves inside.
students move to living room.
project moves slowly.

Project Update

Roto-Rooter Guy showed up yesterday and did his work, thankfully.. Yay. One issue resolved.

Servicemaster Guy finished his work yesterday afternoon late.. two industrial size dehumidifiers downstairs, and about five blowers provide a constant loud humming noise while they dry out the carpet and the drywall. One issue hopefully in the process of being resolved.

Carpet Place Person will show up Tuesday morning to give an estimate for padding underneath the carpets. One issue still to be resolved.

Project Garage saw a little more progress yesterday. That was fun. I actually love organizing the garage. I found some things in boxes which hadn't been unpacked since we left Jersey-January 2004.( Including some nostalgic photos.. of Carol and Tessa... and Donna and me on the rollercoaster that we actually liked.) Another issue being resolved.

So, now I'm wishing our house didn't smell so much (windows remain shut during this drying-out-process)...
Thankful that our downstairs issues are being resolved...
Happy that good friendly workers (all guys, at this point) are showing up to do their jobs.
Thrilled that issues are being resolved. Gotta love it.

Project House-Falls-Apart

Nothing is simple anymore. Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration, but then again, maybe not.

We returned from MN to spend two vacation days here in WI. Yesterday we were going to clean out the garage..Project Garage has been on my list of things to do for over two years. Finally, it was going to be started, at least. Today, we were going to take the hour drive (more or less) to Devil's Lake, and enjoy the day hiking, maybe swimming, after a hard days' work at Project Garage. We were going to do these things...

Instead, we returned from MN to numerous spots of soggy carpet in the basement. Last week we had torrential downpours in Madison, including while we were gone. Apparently water came in through the walls by the downstairs window wells (because those walls are slightly wet as well), seeped through the floor...and left many soggy spots in the three carpeted rooms.

So yesterday, Project Garage turned into Project Move-All-the-Furniture-Out-of-Sho-and-Wich's-Rooms so Servicemaster could come pull the carpets. Sho is sleeping upstairs in the living room. Wich returns on Monday, and will probably have to sleep upstairs as well. Today, Servicemaster Guy (very nice) is pulling out baseboards, molding, and carpet...then he'll remove the soggy smelly padding from the floor. He will also somehow dry out the drywall. Which is so wet it's hard to pull nails out of the molding. Fun.

Hopefully on Wednesday, Carpet Place Person will come and lay new padding and the dried out carpet. Then Servicemaster Guy will return and clean those carpets.

Oh yeah.. this afternoon the sewer backed up into the downstairs shower. Gross. Servicemaster Guy tested that area with some kind of a moisture-o-meter, and has concluded the two issues are not related. So now we're waiting for Roto-Rooter Guy to show up either today or tomorrow to fix that problem.

Project Garage is slow-going at the moment. I'm thinking of putting up supports outside the house in case the walls fall down this week...