God is Good...ALL the Time

I almost had to laugh when the title I chose for this note popped into my head, but it fits so well in spite of all we are going through right now that I just had to use it. I'm sure God is the one who put that "title" in my head anyway, so I might as well listen to Him since He's been talking to me a lot lately through the scriptures.

I almost have to start this from a few months ago. We had had a lot of rain during the day and into the night. When my husband woke up at 2:00 am to get ready for work, he discovered his work clothes that hang in the bathroom closet were all wet. He realized that we must have a leak in our roof, which we were definitely NOT expecting since we had put a new roof on our house just a few years ago. We put plastic down on the floor and placed buckets where the water was coming in at. The man who had done our roof came over and told us he strongly suspected the leak was coming from the one skylight (we have two, one on each side of the roof). Oddly enough, it was the skylight on the other side of the roof that caused us to put a new roof on! He put more caulk around the window, but he said he wasn't sure if that would help. He said if it continued to leak, we'd either need to replace the skylights with better ones or just have them removed and fix the roof. We discovered a few weeks later that the roof was indeed still leaking, but it wasn't leaking very much and sometimes it wouldn't leak at all so we decided to wait until we were in a better place financially to do something.

Last Thursday and Friday, we had a tremendous amount of rain so I continued to run up to the attic to check whether the situation. The roof was definitely leaking so I just kept an eye on whether I felt the bucket needed to be emptied. I dumped about an inch of water from the bucket around 11 am. My husband checked on it at around 7 pm and said there wasn't much water in it (probably about an inch), but the bucket held a gallon and figured it would be fine through the night. He was wrong. Sometime after he left for work and before 5:30 am when I woke up, the box which the bucket was sitting on either gave way from the weight of the bucket or became soaked as water started to spill out of the bucket and then partially collapsed. In any case, enough water came out of the bucket that it made its way down to the bathroom ceiling and came through all over the floor. When I awoke at 5:30 am, I had no idea why I was standing in water when I walked into the bathroom. My daughter came in and simply said "The ceiling is leaking." I immediately RAN up the stairs and into the attic and was horrified to see the box soaked through, partially collapsed in the center, and the bucket leaning precariously to the one side. I grabbed the bucket and saw it was FULL. I realized how much worse it could have been had the bucket completely fallen over and all that water had spilled out. Yes, God is good....all the time! I took the bucket down and dumped the water out of it. Then I went back upstairs and cleaned up the water that was all over the plastic...totally soaking quite a few towels and other rags in the process. My daughter brought me another box and I set that up as good as I could to try and catch any more water that came in. Then I went downstairs to clean up the bathroom floor. Finally, I called my husband at work and told him we had a problem!

I called the roofer and was thankful that the rain had finally slowed down. On Tuesday, I left another message for the roofer because he still hadn't called back. That same day, it rained again and we noticed the one wall in Micah's room (which is on the third floor and technically part of the attic) was now wet below and beside the skylight. As the rain continued to come down and my husband was upstairs trying to figure out if there was anything at all we could do, I told the kids we needed to pray for the rain to stop. Micah, who is only 6 years old, said "Mommy? I didn't pray for that. I prayed that God would do a miracle and that our roof would stop leaking." I had to fight back tears at the faith in my little boy and realized I must be doing something right! I told him that was good, but I still wanted us to all pray for the rain to stop. Micah and Sarah both prayed, and then I prayed. As the kids ate dinner, I went on Facebook and asked my friends via my status line to please pray for the rain to stop. Within MINUTES, the rain stopped and the SUN came out! Later, my daughter yelled down that there was a rainbow in the sky. I didn't need to see it. I knew it was there as soon as I saw the sun come out. I knew God was reminding me that He keeps His promises and He was in control. Of course, Satan didn't like that very much and caused me to start worrying later that night because it was suppose to rain all night. I laid awake and literally felt sick to my stomach with worry. I just kept praying for God to intervene. It didn't rain until almost morning. Yes, God is good...all the time!

Wednesday morning, I woke up with the following verse in mind: Philippians 4:19 says "My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." I noticed it said WILL meet, not might meet. It says ALL your needs, not some of them. I claimed that verse as my own. Later that day, the roofer finally called. He said he'd have to think about what estimate he would quote us and would call us back. I was worried about how long it would take for him to get back to us with a quote on what it would cost to fix our roof, so I checked the weather report and saw no rain was in the forecast until Tuesday. Yes, God is good...all the time!

Yesterday morning, I was doing devotions and read the following verse: Deuteronomy 31:8 says "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." I was so thankful that God was again reminding me that He was with us. He knew what we were going through. He knows about our finances. All I need to do is trust Him and not be afraid because He will be there to help us through this. Yes, God is good....all the time!

I thought about writing a note last night, but I wasn't sure what all I wanted to say or if anyone really would want to read it. God made it perfectly clear this morning that He did indeed want me to share what He was teaching me. My devotions today were to read John 14:1-6, but it was verse 1 that stood out to me. It was Jesus' own words: "Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." I know many people think God and Jesus don't exist, they are a myth, or a fairy tale. Well, I know that they are wrong! I do not have any doubt that God does exist! I also know that He speaks to us and gives us exactly what we need when we need it. I don't think these verses I've been reading the last three days are just a coincidence. I know God has been sending them my way to comfort me and remind me to just keep trusting Him. We still are waiting on the roofer to call back and give us an estimate as to what it will cost to remove the skylights and fix the roof, but I know that God is in control. In spite of all the reasons I have to be fearful and worry, I know that YES! God is good....ALL the time!