Thankful Day 3... A Roof Over My Head!

Like so many Facebook users, I totally buy into the Daily Dose of Gratitude that seems to pop up on a daily basis during the month of November. I drank the kool-aid for the first time last year and it was life changing. I did like most other participants and mentioned that I was thankful for my family and all the obvious things, with short but sweet paragraphs each day.

At the end of November, I stopped posting them, but I didn’t stop noticing the things that I was grateful for on a daily basis. After publicly acknowledging my gratitude for 30 consecutive days, it sort of became a habit to notice those things. Just because I stopped posting my daily dose of gratitude, does not mean that I stopped being grateful for something every single day. As a result of being more aware of this over the past year, I have decided to be a little more thoughtful this year in considering what I am thankful for.

I teach a class on Sunday to 15/16 year old kids. An underlying theme that has seemed to be a continuation of my gratitude project from last November, has been to try to encourage the students to look for the hand of God in their life. By continuing to focus on that in my own life, it has raised my awareness for those tender mercies that we see on a daily basis…. I don’t want to go into all of that again, because I have blogged about it already. (See my posting ,http://www.mommagunn.blogspot.com/2013/08/have-i-seen-hand-of-god-in-my-life-today.html  for a great story about this) I do, however,  mention this so that you might better understand the depths of my feelings about what I am thankful for today.

Today, I am thankful for a roof over my head!

Yesterday, the weather was forecast to be very windy and rainy. A typical blustery day in the Pac NW. Mother Nature did not disappoint… at least in the early part of the day.

Some friends of ours who happened to be out of town (tender mercy) had a tree fall on their home and crushed the roof and did a lot of damage to the inside of the home. Wayne got a call to go and help inspect it and see what could be done to secure it for them. Weather was a huge concern.

I went along, not because I thought I was capable of helping remove a tree from someone’s home, but I thought I could be useful in small ways like fetching things and tossing them onto the roof so the men didn’t have to keep going up and down… and holding the flashlight while they tried to navigate the debris with a chainsaw in the dark…. I am so lucky to have been able to witness so many small miracles during the hours it took to secure this home.

First off… remember that rainy, windy, blustery day that was forecast? Well the clouds parted and the wind stopped…. at least for the few hours needed to complete this act of service. It would have been so much more dangerous for the guys to be up on that roof if it had been raining and the wind continuing the gust. (Tender mercy)

There were many holes in the roof from the tree branches that pokes down like spears through much of the roof. The men were able to know (even in the dark) where it would be safe to stand and walk without falling through the weakened roof. (Tender mercy)

The guys who showed up were blessed with the exact knowledge of how to remove this huge tree without doing any further damage to the home or hurting each other. If you have never witnessed trees being knocked down with a chainsaw, then you might not understand how precise you need to be on how you hack up a tree. There is actually a lot of physics involved, especially when the tree is resting precariously at an angle in the middle of someone’s roof. You don’t want any part of the tree to fall inside the home, you don’t want part of the tree to fall down and go through the side of the house and you don’t want the weight to shift at the top of the tree and knock someone off the roof. (Tender mercy)

As I was on the ground holding the flashlight, and the tree was finally removed to reveal a gaping hole in the roof, someone mentioned that just stretching plastic sheeting over the hole might not work because if it rains, it will just pool on the plastic and eventually give way and flood the home.  At that moment they noticed a pile of new 2x4’s stacked up next to the home… almost like they were just there waiting for a purpose… now they had one! (Tender mercy)

With the lumber building a bridge across the hole and the plastic stretched over it, they decided they needed a way to secure the edges of the plastic since the staples where going all the way through it. Someone just happened to have a bunch of molding trim pieces that he had removed from his own home… EXACTLY what they needed to secure the edges of the plastic to keep it in place! The molding even still had the nails in it! (Tender mercy)

One guy who showed up to help happened to have a compressor and all the right air tools they needed in his van. (Tender mercy)

The antique furniture in the bedroom was not affected and was able to be removed safely. (Tender mercy)

A neighbor was able to witness the people from my friend’s church all coming together to help him, (the neighbor who was left to oversee the home in their absence), secure the home and fulfill the responsibility he felt to look after his neighbors home as promised. Perhaps a missionary opportunity? (Tender mercy)

My heart breaks for this family to have to go through this tragedy, but it was such an amazing opportunity to see the hand of God working in their life. It really is nearly impossible to tally the tender mercies that took place last night and I am certain there will be more as this event unfolds for them.

So today… I am grateful for a roof over my head… something that up until last night, I sort of took for granted! I am grateful that, as I sit in my cozy home and feel secure, I can look out any window and see gorgeous landscape and scenery and in every direction I can see amazing neighbors that I can count among my friends. As I look under my roof, I see the love of the beautiful family that I have been blessed with. (But that is a whole new level of gratitude that I shall save for another day!)