it’s been a very interesting and fun and super crazy summer. cole and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary in june and reflecting on that past year and dreaming and goal setting for this next year was so fun. we’ve learned so much about each other, about ourselves (the amount i’ve come to learn about myself through marriage blows me away), and about the Lord. i love seeing the way both of our relationships with the Lord have grown separately and together in the past year.
but going back a little further in the year, April 26th to be exact. it was about 10:30pm and cole and i were just about to go to bed. i decided to go back into the kitchen and grab a glass of water. the Lord knew i was about to get a lot more water than i had planned for though!
when i came out of our bedroom i noticed there was a stream of water flowing into our dining room. it was one of those crazy april rainstorms and it had been raining pretty consistently that whole week and apparently it was more than the ground outside our front door could handle.
the gutter outside our front walkway was clogged, so all the water from the roof was just pouring over, collecting outside of our front door, and then pouring in under the door. luckily cole and i were able to attend to it pretty quickly. we used up every last towel, washcloth, blanket, and sweatshirt in our whole house to soak up what we could and create a dam containing the water into the living room. i called my mom and she and my sister drove over with a bunch of their towels and a shopvac. it was a very long night and about 17 loads of laundry the next day but eventually we were able to stop the water from coming in.
definitely an eventful way to mark our first year of home ownership!
although, because we own a condo, we had to contact the management company for them to work on the repairs because they’re in charge of repairs and situations like that. they sent out a contractor the next day to see what happened, and the following week sent a flood restoration company to set up drying equipment. a week later they came in and took our the bottom half of our walls in the dining room and a bit of the living room.
it’s been a lot of phone calls, emails, insurance talk, and 3 months later, and we still haven’t gotten our walls repaired.
it’s been a hard situation going between us, the management company, and their insurance company. nobody seems very eager to fix the damage.
in the past couple months i’ve also started writing a bible study. i’ve felt called to put one together for a long time now and recently got the idea and the inspiration for it so i am super excited to get that into all of your hands soon! although i keep having to push my goals/deadlines for it to the side because my laptop has been overheating randomly! a warning popping up telling me to turn it off immediately.
we’ve also been praying and seeking what God wants from us in this next season, this next year of marriage. what purpose he has for us in this place.
to top it all off. a week ago as cole and i were getting ready to go play some tennis after dinner, we heard a mysterious slam. our neighbor had been playing ball in the road with some of his friends, hit it to hard, and broke one of our windows. luckily our management company was a bit quicker to approve repairs on the window, and we should have a replacement piece of glass installed in less than 2 weeks.
it’s been a full summer, stressful in ways and exciting and stretching in ways. i think i’ve learned in such a tangible way that circumstances only have the power to determine your mood and attitude if you let them. circumstances really have no power over you and definitely have no power over God, the work He can do, and the way He can speak to you. i’ve learned that waiting is HARD, and not knowing can be even harder. but when i hand things over to Christ, He hands me His peace that surpasses all understanding. i’ve learned that when i’m frustrated, when i’m feeling confused, discouraged, and upset, continuing to meet God at the kitchen table every morning is the only thing that’s going to get me through. even when it feels like He may not be listening or isn’t paying attention, that time is the only thing that can sustain me in a world of chaos. and i’ve learned that His voice is so much clearer when we ask to hear it, when we tune our eyes and ears and mind to listen and seek His voice throughout every aspect of our day.
i can’t wait to share with you more when these things come to a close. when the bible study nears completion and when our walls finally get put back in!
“Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters— a pathway no one knew was there!”
Psalms 77:19
Taylor Magnuson 