Good things and bad things

Life is such a melange, it's hard to get your bearings sometimes.

Today was 60 degrees of sunny wonderfulness.  I went to my Bible study, and afterwards two of my new friends and I went walking through one of their neighborhoods . . .

Where we saw a giant blue heron.  It was perched at the top of a leafless tree, behind a house, overlooking a pond.  We circled the house to get a better view.  In the twinkling of an eye, it took off into the sky, neck crooked elegantly between two massive wings, a breathless, wondrous sight.  God is good.

After our walk, during which I got so warm I tied my jacket around my waist, I headed off to a quaint cafe to meet my husband for lunch.  Arriving before he did, I sat in my van and checked my phone, where I saw evidence of a missed call from Shannon.  I called her back.

She was very sad, quite upset.

You see, when we moved, she lost her permanent address.  But she did not change her driver's license or the title of her car.  I mentioned that she might want to change it all to IL when she came out over the holidays, but she has an impending move to Boston, and she didn't want to think through all the hassle.

Well.  The great state of NY caught up with her and suspended her license and registration.  She still seems to have insurance, which I am not sure I understand.  But the point being that her driver's license is suspended, she had to take action.  However, taking action required that she have her birth certificate and car title.  We had some hiccups locating those, but by the grace of God (really, after desperate prayers were answered) we found them and I mailed them, certified mail, to her CT address.

But Shannon did not get them.  The envelope was lost in the mail.  She was calling today to confirm what I had feared when the tracking information online had read, "out for delivery," for five straight days.  The package was lost.

Shawn and I prayed in the cafe, over our skillet lunches, asking for a miracle.  God always knows where everything is.  That's a good thing.  Shannon was ready to get into her car and drive illegally to the post office to see if she could get anywhere with them.  I encouraged her not to drive, to pray instead.  I told her I would go back to the post office where I mailed the stuff, show them my receipt, and ask them what we could do.  She had already walked all the way from her lab to her apartment, but I encouraged her to go back.

Before she went back, however, she stepped into her apartment building, where whom should she meet but her mail carrier.  She was able to talk to him.  He said that there had been a substitute carrier the previous week, but he promised to check into the issue and see what he could find.

Long story short, he found the package and will deliver it tomorrow.  God is so good.  We are certain that it was God Himself who ordained that Shannon would have the rare opportunity to bump into her mail carrier and talk about this problem.  And solve it.

If you wanted kitchen news, it's not so great.  But it isn't disastrous, either.  At least, it seems that there is a good possibility that it won't be disastrous.

Last Friday they installed all our lights.  We have a Very Bright kitchen.  Saturday we drove Laura back to college, and Sunday we came home again.  When we arrived home Sunday evening and turned on the kitchen lights, we suddenly noticed, inescapably and impossible to ignore, that our ceiling, which is supposed to be flat, is not flat at all, but rippled, dimpled, cracked, gapping and smeary.  The thought ran through my head, "If we wanted it to look like that, we wouldn't have been afraid to do it ourselves."

I will spare you all the details, except to say that I am devastated that we will have to go back to more drywall work, more sanding of drywall compound.  More big messes on top of my brand new appliances and brand new floor.  Also, I can't see any way to fix it without removing the crown molding that has already been installed.

To his credit, when we asked the contractor to come out and look at it, he agreed that it was unacceptable, promised to make it right, said he would get a drywall specialist in, and offered to pay to replace the crown if it can't be reused after they take it out.  So you see, there is hope.  There is hope.

Hope, and a lot more drywall dust before my kitchen will be usable.

But there are good things and bad things, and they all mix together to make up our lives.

I will remember the blue heron and praise God who made it.