I'm not one for new year's resolutions. Every year my resolve is the same...Peace. However, January 3, I wrapped my arms around my husband and said, "THIS is our year, babe." He turned around from practicing the piano and said, "Yeah it is!" I could tell he had misunderstood and I quickly said, "This is our year to start planning for a new kitchen."
You see, as our family has grown to 7, the kitchen did not. I had hoped for an update, but was perfectly happy (so I thought) with it as it was. Then, I began to realize what life in our kitchen would look like with teaching basic life skills and things didn't look so exciting. We could have functioned with it just as it was. Food would still be prepared and dishes still washed and on and on... but a gal can dream, can't she?
When Chris realized what I was saying, he immediately felt the weight of what I was suggesting... "Well, then we will pray every day and ask the Lord to provide, because I certainly can't." So we prayed together and decided it would be added to our prayer requests during our nightly family prayer time. I will tell you, I was perfectly content with leaving this issue at the feet of Jesus. I continued my usual daily routine of caring for little humans, loads of laundry and lots of time cleaning up the kitchen because the kids kept spilling water on the floor AND NOT CLEANING IT UP!!!! Emphasis on that last part is intentional. One night, after everyone was in bed, I was finishing up the kitchen and once again, water was on the floor. I begrudgingly wiped up the spill and threw the towel in the laundry. As I walked over the spot, I realized there was more water. And I could see a teeny-tiny crack in the floor tile. And water was coming up from under the tile. (Yes, I did have to apologize to five little people for blaming them for the "spills".) I went and got Chris to let him know something was up. Wanna know what date this was? January 11...I know because I went back to my prayer journal and that's the date. 8 days after "This is our year, babe."
This story is long and could be even longer if I keep up every detail so I'll try to make this as short as possible...
Water on the floor led to digging up a little slab to access pipe...pipe wasn't the issue so we called a plumber...plumber said, "call your insurance."... had contractor come and say, "call your insurance" .... we reluctantly call insurance only to go back and forth with them ... they finally settled on what the would help with and we didn't have enough ... then we did get the $$ side (or should I say $$$$$$$$$$$ side?) addressed ... work began, tears were shed, trench through the entire house, kitchen, living, master and two baths unusable for just over 5 mos, a move to Grandma's house for those five months, meeting our new friend, Jorge, plumbing replaced, everything rebuilt and TA-DA!!! NEW LIVING SPACE!
I will tell you, it took a lot longer to go through that all than it did to type it. However, what I thought would be "Let's start dreaming and praying for possibly saving up a little to begin work on a better functioning kitchen" became not only an ask, but has been provided through the Lord's provision in every aspect! What I thought would be an easy task, was far more challenging than I could have ever imagined. There was a lot of prayer that went into this process. My children witnessed more tears from me than I had hoped they would see. My girls went and emptied out their piggy banks so mommy could have her new kitchen and stop crying. BTW, the tears were attributed to insurance dealings and logistics, not the kitchen...although, the giant trench in the house didn't help any.
As we came to the end of this process, we walked through the house with the kids. Anna (7) was with Chris and said, "Daddy, after this, let's tell mommy not to ask God for any more kitchens." So, be careful what you pray for...your children just might witness HIS answer. 🥰
