It's not lost on me that things started coming to a head within thirty-six hours of me singing prophetically in worship on Sunday that there's nothing in our way that we cannot overcome, no mountain in our way that cannot be moved. By the Spirit of God empowering us, those mountains must be moved. I sang it, and Monday happened. Our enemy always overplays his hand.
"Is it still Sunday?" I tried to find my bedside clock. Found it. The hazy, neon green glow steadied into distinct lines. It was 2:43 a.m., Monday, and this marked the seventh time, at least, that I'd thrown the sheets back and stumbled to Adelaide's room to either reinsert her pacifier, burp her, console her, feed her, or all of the above. Teething. We repeated the routine about 300 more times until she woke for the day at 7:30. As much as I wanted to go bury my face back in my crumpled pillow, I was actually sort of relieved to end the nighttime battle for sleep and just get started with the day. I gave myself a quick, mental pep talk along the lines of, "Jennifer! You are not rested. Guard yourself. Don't let it mess you up." Then I made some coffee and began admiring the little ridge of my daughter's first tooth, emerging through her lower gums.
All weekend, Jed and I had been washing our dishes by hand in the downstairs bathroom. The kitchen sink was clogged, badly, and the dishwasher shared the same pipe. I'm so grateful for drains that actually drain, and for dishwashers, that I could kiss them on the mouth. But back to the bathroom. When you open the door to our tiny downstairs bathroom, you're face to face with our stacked washer and dryer, almost as wide as the doorway and not even a foot from the threshold. If you can squeeze through the sliver of space it leaves on your left, you have a small patch of floor on which to maneuver between the toilet, the giant cylindrical waterheater, and the smallest (real) sink you've probably ever seen. I love that sink. It's sort of old school. But at about 9 inches wide and fewer still from wall to front rim, it was clearly not intended for scrubbing clean a dutch oven, especially when straddling the cat's litter box. When he wasn't helping with the dishes, Jed was working for hours trying to unclog the kitchen pipes. He wielded crazy tools, he removed the dishwasher, and he put said dishwasher tightly back in place. Every inch that he further disappeared under the sink was another stack of dollars saved from having to call a plumber. Until he had to call a plumber.
Meanwhile, Lily's food bowl had continued to look exactly the same for days. Same food level, same spot. I kept thinking Jed had been feeding her. Saturday morning, its static look finally registered with me and had to mean one thing: she hadn't been eating. How long had it been? At least since Thursday, I was thinking. Our introverted and beautiful, fluffy cat had been much more reclusive lately, come to think of it, so I went looking for her. Lying on our bed, she looked different, sunken. Had I not really seen her in two days? She had lost weight. She looked lethargic, and her eyes seemed to be asking a question. I pet her for a while and tucked it away somewhere that she wasn't well. Saturday flew by, what with all the drain-clanking noises and the dish-washing escapades. Then it was Sunday. Sunday mornings are always busy. After church, in the brief afternoon pause before Jed left for the service in the Northeast Kingdom, I remembered our cat.
"Jed, I think Lily's dying." The words were out before I even knew that's what I really thought. That was weird.
"Dying? She's probably just sick." Of course, Jed's answer was more probable, but I just wasn't sure. That night, the kids were finally down, and I found Lily. She was standing at her food bowl, and I gave her all sorts of high-pitched, soft-voiced praises for attempting to eat or drink something. Barely sniffing her food, she tapped her paw in the water as she always does to verify its depth, then she tapped it with her other paw, then she just stopped. Without drinking, she came to me and lied down for some affection. "Oh no," I thought as I stroked her from head to tail. I could feel her shoulder blades, ribs, spine. For a fat cat, she was super skinny. She looked at me, and made a low, mournful, barely audible plea.
After my Monday morning pep talk and cup of coffee, life came at me fast. I thought we'd be winging it with the tiny-sink dishwashing-a-thon for a few days when Jed texted me that the plumber was coming that morning. My heart leapt and sank at the same time: "Working drains!" "Lots of money." As I tidied up the kitchen, I glanced at Lily's bowl, hopeful. No change. I went to find her, and she wasn't dead, but she looked to be at death's door. I called Jed. What were we going to do? We obviously had to call a vet and just figure out the cost. By the time I got around to making the appointment, the plumber had been humphing and sighing for hours in complete consternation at the horribly designed entanglement of pipes under our kitchen sink. He tried all his tools and knocked out part of a wall before he finally snaked our neighbors' hose into my kitchen and used a blow bag to, really, just blow out the clog. Wouldn't you know, it worked. About halfway through the drama, I remembered how tired I was, Adelaide wasn't eating well, Levi was craving some Mommy time, and I was worried about Lily. By the time I made several calls and finally made the appointment, I started to cry. Where did that come from?
Then I remembered all the kick-butt prophetic words we received via Holy Spirit just the day before. Ones I had so passionately sung. Ah-ha. You see, for those willing to receive it, Yahshua (or most people call Him Jesus) bought victory for us with his life, death, and miraculous resurrection. Pretty awesome. For us, the deal is done. Most of us know about that, right? But does that mean one day in heaven, or did He say, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?" That means today, in my life, right now, I have a chance to walk in that resurrection power and apply that victory to everything. Indeed, maybe I must. Maybe that's the point. The ever-increasing Kingdom (on earth as it is in heaven). Hmmm... I have the opportunity to look at the clogged drain, the sick cat, the sleepless nights, the financial statements and say, "Come what may, you are not the final word." And so they are not. Because maybe junk comes at us, and maybe that junk would like to dangle a very rotten carrot to distract us from the purpose we're fulfilling and the God we're glorifying. Maybe it'd like to make us soft, make us want to take a break. Maybe our enemy would like nothing more than to keep this little thing he's got going in the earth, and maybe he's terrified of sons of God who finally get it that every victory we win in our lives puts him one step closer to his ultimate dethronement. Maybe he knows what I know. Maybe he's scared of what I know: In this story, I win, because my God is remarkable, mind-blowing, and splendid. End of story.
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