November 9 – “Finished?”

We had quite a few people (for post-Ike Seaside) in church today.  I think it was around forty.  Some more folks were back in town.  Some more relief workers were there.  Some folks who now live in the West End came.  A few contractors new to the area came.  One family came that has been promising me they would be there for almost three years.  A lady came who I have been in email correspondence with for about a year.  And many others who have been there since Ike were not there today.  I guess that makes it the closest thing to a typical Seaside Sunday that we've had so far.  I am encouraged.   The Texas Baptist Men sent another group to work on our houses today.  They arrived at nine.  We joined them after church, and on the way there I was actually a little excited to see what they had done.  It's been a long time since I've been excited to get to our house.  Anyway, I couldn't get into our house.  They were finishing up the power wash and preparing to spray for mold.  So after I finished my footlong chili-cheese coney and large cherry limeade slush I pulled on my boots, gloves, and a mask and headed over to Mom's to see what damage I could inflict over there.  They had already removed most of the hardwood floors (Thank goodness.  I've had about enough of that for my lifetime).  So Chris and I grabbed a hammer and pry bar and set about removing nails.  It's one of those tedious, thankless jobs that "Somebody" has to do.  We have learned to accept being that "Somebody" happily and gratefully.  Everything has to be done eventually for us to get finished here.  Finished.   We finally emerged for the end of the day when Chris told me the group was packing up to leave.  I walked across the street and watched a guy with a squeegee pushing water out of the garage.  The man in charge was standing there as well, but he hadn't seen me yet.  He said something along the lines of, "This is the point where we tell the homeowner that we're pretty much finished with this house."  But "finished" kind of thoughts were not what were going trough my mind at that moment.  "Finished.  What about the ceiling?  Will we have to tear that out?  And all the insulation up there?  Does it need to come out?  Do I still have to scrape the rest of the tar from the floor?  Doesn't look like it would be that hard any more.  What will we do about the tile in the bathroom, with all that grout under it?  Do we still have to scrape up the tile in the family room, or can we just go over that?  And then over at Mom's.  We still have quite a bit of cleanup.  And some tile we have to smash in the bathrooms.  And it still needs to be power washed.  And disinfected.  And we don't even know for sure what we're going to do with it now.  We want Nathan and April to be able to but it, but they are still a ways away from establishing credit.  My brothers are worried about Mom's money situation.  Her insurance probably won't be enough to fix up the house.  "As is" houses are going for around $40,000 in the neighborhood.  Could we possibly buy it and slowly fix it up?  Would that Nehemiah's Vision group I met consider coming in and helping us with construction?  All this went through my head in a span of about ten seconds or so.  I did recover enough to blurt out a "Thank you."  It kind of startled the guy.  He apologized for talking about me when I was standing there.  Finished.   We gathered for prayer before they left.  We shared some sweaty hugs.  I asked what I needed to do to get them to come back and finish.  "Call the church or Ernie."  I have both numbers.  Consider it done.  And then they were gone.  Finished.   After some minor rearranging of supplies, we gathered Mom into the car and headed for Omega and the next chapter of our exile experience – Nathan and April move in with us today.  Their FEMA hotel stay is over.  Finished.   Finished is an interesting word.  Sounds so negative.  Chris and Nathan both said today they are ready to be finished with demo and to move on to rebuild.  That's the thing about finished.  It doesn't just mean something is over with.  It also means something else has begun.  Our life is a continuous adventure of "begin and finish, so that we can begin again."  And beginnings are something special, you know.  In Revelation 21:6, Jesus says, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life."   Father, you have heard how we long to experience some "Finished's" in this whole flood experience.  Help us long even more for The Beginning – for you.  Amen.