God's Houseplan

"This is PERFECT!"are the words my therapist explained as she walked through the doors of my new home on my predischarge safety home evaluation into the welcoming, wheel-chair friendly ,wide-open spaces of the home God had prepared especially for this moment in time, one that I never could have anticipated, but one that he lovingly prepared me for anyway. I had suffered a massive stroke a month before, and was excitedly anticipating the possibility of living in this home my husband and I had purchased not even a month before, our church family and my husband's work pitched in and moved all our stuff for us, so closing on our old house could take place as planned! At my therapist's exclamation, James 1:17 stormed into my mind with authority....Every good and PERFECT gift comes from above, coming dowm from the father of heavenly lights,who does not change like the shifting shadows, and in that moment I knew that this was a house that God built expressly for me, a revelation that has been affirmed a millon times since!
Earlier in the summer my husband and I had commemced with a serious house hunt when we sold our home unexpectly sold while we were on vacation. Not surprisingly, at first we had difficulty finding a home that fit our tastes in our price-range; however, we did eventually settle on a remodeled 1970's tri-level that boasted a ton of space and fresh paint. When our offer was accepted we rejoiced but continued to pray the prayer that we had muttered silently to our creator from the initiation of the tedious process...Father, please guide us to the home that will best meet our needs as a family in the future. We moped dejectedly forgetting the request we had made of our maker when the deal fell through after the home inspection, turns out no matter how pretty the paint job, a 1970's house is still over 30 years old!;) When my realtor spoke the words, "It must not have been meant to be. God has a plan that we don't always understand." I must stop here to say that the foreshadowing is freaky, and God, the author of our lives is my author hero as well as my every other hero! Anyway, when she spoke those words, I took them as a trite, albeit kind statement, you know the comforting jargon we pull out but don't really mean when someone is upset because we don't know what else to say. Turns out, she was dead right! Not long after these prophetic words were spoken, I fell to the floor on a Saturday morning while we were making plans to go shopping for the new house, the new construction one on 2.5 acres outside a small town similar to the one where we grew up that we had quickly chosen after the first deal fell through, so we would have a home when the new owner moved into our old house that we had sold what now seemed prematurely, because a blood clot had lodged itself in my middle cerebral artery preventing the flow of oxygen to my brain and effectively suffocating and killing a vast number of the brain cells that I relied on to run the left side of my body. When this event occurred, it left me in a state in which the 1970's tri-level would have been a complete nightmare to come home to after rehab, so God being faithful to answer our prayers, acted upon what he knew about future events of our lives and squashed the deal and presented us with the spectacular home he had begun to prepare for us more than a year prior to the life-altering event, and my therapist recognized his signature immediately,"PERFECT! Since then, as I mentioned before, God's perfect design in this home has beem affirmed countless times from the initially necessary walk-in shower in the master bath to the hose like faucet in the kitchen, I could go on and on about the special features that God included in this supposedly generic spec home that a builder just happened to build with no buyer in mind a year before my stroke perfectly accomodated to my post-stroke needs! Wow! Isn't God AWESOME to provide for his children in such PERFECT ways! I was reminded of this once again yesterday when I was able to fill a large pot with water in the kitchen without assistance thanks to the hose like faucet on my kitchen sink and, then, just slide the heavy water-filled pot to the buner accross the smooth suface of the counter and cook top. Significant to me because, otherwise, I would not have been able to accomplish this simple feat with my singular functioning hand and arm. I am in awe of God's PERFECT LOVE to the point of writer's block...there simply are no words! Oh yeah, I want to point out that God is taking care of you in the same way right now:):), so no need to worry about the future. Its in God's very capable, loving hands! Just trust him with it!