Hemmed In.

There are those times when it feels like a lot is happening all at once. And each person processes the heart press in different ways. I am processing my own heart press as I sit at the kitchen table at Beacon Hall to write this morning while I wait for a plumber to arrive.

Those times when normal everyday relationships pick up intensity because of trouble, conflict or hurt.

A tree crashing into your house.

The ceiling collapsing onto a family member.

The ongoing gratitude that God chose for there to be no significant loss of life or injury.

Your head clears from the initial crash to the coming processes of addressing damage to your home.

Continuing in the daily press of relationships with one another.

Beginning an insurance claim.

Not knowing how that will all turn out.

The dollar signs start dancing in your head with a sense of gloom.

Friends and family show their immediate support in love and deeply practical ways.

Your friends call. They have Covid.

Your insurance adjuster won't be there for 10 days.

You want to keep on with normal living, but you seem to not be able to stop from standing at the window staring at the tree on and in your house.

You wake up the next morning to a very cold 49 degrees in your house.

Your HVAC unit is done.

You huddle in closer proximity than normal to all your house dwellers in the back room where there is heat for the weekend.

You wonder some more about the mounting cost of these moments.

Friends and family show their immediate support in love and deeply practical ways.

Some more friends call. They have Covid.

Your family member is beginning a new chapter in life with hopefulness and a sense of loss all at once.

The unusual activity of digging 141 items out from under a room filled with fifty plus year old granulated, disintegrated insulation is humbling.

Your hot water heater pipes are leaking and your water bill doubled because of a running toilet.

You're waiting on the plumber and a general contractor to come do their work and estimating.

You wonder how all of this will go.

And you're sitting, standing, walking, working, talking, serving... living the normal routines of your life aware of all of these extra, not so usual events pressing on your heart and mind moment by moment. And mixed into many little nooks and crannies in, between and around all of those events listed above are these words.

Lord, thank you for protecting Trey.

Lord, thank you for the care of our family, our church family and friends.

Lord, how will all of this go?

Lord, help Trey in this new season of his life.

Lord, help us to be a blessing to the insurance adjuster, the contractor, the plumber.

Lord, help us to not merely want to use them.

Lord, how will all this go?

Lord, please bring healing to our friends who are sick.

Lord, thank you for providing for us financially.

Lord, how will we pay for all of this?

Lord, what are you doing in the midst of all of this?

Lord, thank you for helping us.

Lord, thank you.

The past few months have held some not so usual events and happenings for us and you. I have felt the heart press of not knowing how all of the different streams will process out, how they will end up. We have talked to each other a lot. We have talked to the Lord a lot. I believe we have perspective. No one was killed or seriously injured. There is much more significant press and suffering happening all around us. And yet, this is what we are being given to live out.

A friend asked me how I was doing in the midst of all of these not so normal happenings for our family. I told him that it had been a lot to take in all at once, but that I felt hemmed in by the Lord. That is about the only way that I can describe how I/we have not swung too extreme in any given direction. The words I have for that are on our wall at Beacon Hall.

Hemmed In. Bible book of Psalm. Chapter 139. Verse 5. "You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me."

That is what I am saying.

Lord. Thank you for hemming me in. Lord. Thank you for hemming us in.

There's more.