January 13 – “Past and Future”

Our present collided with our past and future today. The past part was an interesting experience. I finally decided to go into our garage and at least prepare some of the junk to be put into the attic. Excuse me. Did I say junk? Didn’t mean it. Not at all. Treasures. Absolute treasures. Chris took Mom to the doctor this afternoon. It was just her dermatologist follow-up. Last night I thought it would have been something else, though. I was at the Seaside Christian Academy school board meeting. Chris was on her way home from Bay City after taking her Mom and Dad to their appointments. Mon was knitting and watching TV when I left. About an hour into the meeting I got a text from Chris. It said she was home. That’s good. She had already called her Dad to check in. Good job. And she had picked my Mom up off the floor. What? But it was OK. She was eating some ice cream. Now that woke me up. Had she not made the ice cream comment I would have left right in the middle of a very important discussion about the future of the school. It looks like we are going to finish out this year. In the Fall we may have to make some major changes. It’s partly economic. We are really tight for funds. It’s partly a response to where God seems to be working right now. Our second through eighth grades are bursting at the seams, and we have a waiting list. Our commitment was to go where God was at work, so that would keep at it. It’s going to be tough. Well, that was a divergence from where I began. The past. I waited until Chris took Mom to the doctor, and then attacked the garage. It is full of boxes with stuff that made it through the storm, but not exactly with flying colors. There were some exciting finds. One small box had a string of pearls that Chris thought she lost. Others had knick-knacks and dolls and toys. Most of it I just repackaged best I could to get rid of some of the boxes and get as much of the stuff into plastic tubs as I could so it could go in the attic. I was wondering if there would be any flare of emotions, but there really were none. It felt like business as usual in cleaning out a garage – put it all in the driveway, then put it all back. But I dread when Chris has to go through everything again. So much for the past. The future had two expressions. One, Christina came by with the boys. I guess that would be three “futures.” Jachin, Micah, and the little one still cooking. The other “future” was this morning. We forced ourselves to go test drive a Chevy Cobalt. We went to the dealer here on the Island for convenience sake. The sales guy was pretty nice. He “vulture” us when we drove up, but really didn’t do the proverbial hard sell like we expected. He did make sure we had his card, though. We liked the car. We were worried about Mom getting into the back seat, but I think she’ll be fine. Our sales guy met us when we got back and asked if we would like to drive the other one. He made it sound like it would be a totally different experience. The difference? It was blue. The other one was white. OK. But the blue one wouldn’t start. Sounded like it was out of gas to me. When we got home I Facebooked a friend who works at a Chevy dealership. He said he thought their guys could find a way to get the price down in the $12,000 range. I’d sure like it to be closer to $10,000. There is a dealership in Houston where Chris saw an ad for $13,000. I guess we’ll check it out. We only have a few weeks to get this done. Psalms 56:4 says, “In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid.” Father, help us get through this car buying thing. I don’t like it. Amen.