January 20 – “A pleasant surprise”

We had a pleasant surprise yesterday.  At least it was a pleasant respite for me from working on Sunday's teaching.  Cailyn showed up.  Apparently April had been texting to arrange for Cailyn to be cared for while she was in class.  On her phone Chris is right next to Christina, so she thought she was texting Chris, but some of them were going to Christina.  I guess she got confused.  They showed up like we would be expecting them, but we had no idea what was going on.  When they arrived I was talking to Kel about coming over to his house to get some of our stuff out of their shed, so I told him they were here.  He said they were supposed to be there.  So we were "forced" to keep her.  Gee, that was really tough.   Chris and Mom went to their Wednesday Club meeting, so Cailyn and I went over to Kel and Christina's.  I figured she was supposed to be there anyway, so maybe she could play with her cousins.  As it turned out Christina had taken the boys to the library and then to the park.  Didn't bother Cailyn, though.  She found their stash of bubbles and was quickly engrossed in that strange phenomenon.   I was going over there to get some of our Ike stored stuff from Kel's shed.  He's cleaning up in preparation for their move to LaMarque.  I wasn't even sure what of our stuff was still in there.  The mirror that used to hang in our bedroom was there, but it was broken.  Our telescope was falling apart, but it had already made great pirate toy for the boys.  I'll have to see if it is salvageable for its intended use or if they now have a permanent pirate miniscope.  There was a dog gate.  Well, I guess it was technically a child safety gate, but we haven't needed one of those for a long time.  And a TV tray.  That was an exciting find.  It was just what I needed for home group to put the laptop on for our singing time.  I left the surfboards there for the time being since Kel said Nathan might be the one renting the house anyway.   After we were done with the scavenging, I helped Kel carry up some leftover Ike donated insulation to their attic.  He's planning to stick in the some of the walls up there to regulate the upstairs temperature a little better.  I suggested he save some for the hole in the floor downstairs where their old floor furnace had been.  Not that there was a gaping hole there.  It had a piece of wood attached to the furnace grate in it.  But air still flowed fairly freely through the cracks.  He took that to heart, and while I helped April load Cailyn's carseat, he actually did it.  You could tell the difference right away.   Ah, home repairs and restoration.   1 Peter 5:10-11 says, "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen."   Father, thank you for being the Master Restorer.  Amen.