The Forest

I don't understand why the things that have happened in the past two months, did happen.  I'm hoping some insight will come, in time, but for now this is a record of the wild, stormy walk down the yellow brick road through the forest of our life.  The four of us just trying to feel at home, again.

We moved into our new apartment on October 1st.  I was slightly worried about the move, but it all went very well.  It wasn't more than a few days in our new place, and the problems started.  I even mentioned to my husband and boys that I wanted to go home, this new place was strange and different and it didn't feel like home, yet.

It all started when we found some soaked boxes in my son, Elijah's room.  We thought it might be something inside the box, but it turned out to be a broken pipe in the wall between the bathroom and our two bedrooms.  Our complex was great about it, they were very nice and they came right out to fix it.  They moved all of our furniture out of the way, took down a shelf and cut a big hole in the wall.  We did the clean up after the maintenance man finished patching the wall, one problem down.

The next morning I came out into the kitchen and both sides of the sick were full to the top, with water.  I tried the disposal, but the water wouldn't budge.  Maintenance came right out and fixed that too.  Turned out to be our up stairs neighbor's clog.

A few more things that stressed us in the next weeks were, a sticking garage door, the discovery of roaches, tons of little flies all over my son, Elijah's room, and ants in our room.

Then there was the problem with the cable company.  By this time we were deep into the forest and all seemed dark.  First we couldn't get them to come out to our apartment because we didn't have phone service.  I used my mom's number, we waited all day but they didn't show up.  I borrowed several of my son's friends phones, but the cable company didn't show up.  I finally went down to their business and I talked them into meeting me out in front of our apartment, in the morning.  I only had to wait outside an hour, and then after having no phone, internet, or TV for five weeks, we had them all.

So, we were thinking that the worst was behind us, what could happen now?  Well, I will tell you, Thanksgiving morning we were up at around 2:00 am. We noticed that the floor in our bedroom was soaked, "Here we go again!"  I thought.  Thanksgiving Day, we had a big hole in our wall, another broken pipe!

A few more things that added to our frustration, were, a traffic accident, I crunched our car, about four inches of water outside our apartment door, when it rained, and our garage door got soaked with water and now would not stay open, I had to get someone to hold it every time I went somewhere.  Things were still tough but we kept going down that road.

 I have to mention that I have had bronchitis for three weeks so far, which has made everything seem so much worse.  We didn't have any money to get our car smogged or registered, so I have been driving it with expired tags, and I almost got towed, the officer just gave me a warning that time.  We needed tires badly, and I was just plain afraid to drive that car anymore.  My Mom helped us out with the tires and getting it registered.  You may think we were on our way out of the forest, but instead, the flying monkeys attacked!  We came home from the DMV to find that our phone, cable TV and our internet weren't working, again!  We spent another day trying to settle that.  It seems that the cable company didn't turn off the cable service at our old apartment the six times that I called and asked them to, and the four times that I went down to their business.  They were trying to charge us for all of that time at our old apartment that the cable should have been turned off.

This apartment is also about half the size of our old place, so we spent days and days deciding what goes and what stays, then making many trips to the dumpster.  We don't have a couch or a dining room set, yet.  We all worked so hard but this wasn't fun or exciting, it was discouraging.

I know that I shouldn't be trying to read God's mind, but I feel pretty sure that God is trying to get me to trust Him.  Not just in the good and happy times, but also when I come up against something wicked in my life.  Until I get this message into my heart and soul, I might stay trapped in this forest.  I know everyone has problems, once in a while, but what we have been going through has been unbelievable.  Don't count me out just yet though, I do plan on finishing this and coming out the other end, better for this experience.