February Made Me Shiver

February was a long, cold month for us. We began our move the first week of February and with each planned productive day came setbacks. "Can't go pack at the old house, someone has to be here for the Internet company." "Had planned to go over this morning, but now the plumber is coming. Oh, turns out the plumber will be back tomorrow to replace the toilet." "We have to be around this afternoon for the dishwasher repair guy." It was a week of delays. When we finally settled on a day to move the big furniture, my husband and baby woke up that morning, puking. The day we were supposed to get all our furniture, I had a disconsolate infant on me most of the day, and we postponed the furniture move for the sake of our friends and their families. The day we finally did move the furniture, it rained off and on all day... So we still didn't get everything. Nine days into the month and we just couldn't seem to get things done. 

Three days after we moved the bulk of our stuff, I set up my cookbook shelf, because it makes me feel at home. It made me feel like some of my beloved book friends were within my reach. Like I knew where something was. I didn't actually, of course. I still went through four rooms yesterday looking for a pen! "Why can't I find a pen?!? They're normally everywhere!" (This isn't even true... We have toddlers. I don't leave pens just anywhere.) So, even though Julia Child and The Pioneer Woman sit snugly on their little shelf... I still spent the whole month lost in a place that people kept calling my house. 

Not to mention it was cold. The first night the oil furnace was out so my husband and I huddled together upstairs (where there is electric heat) on a mattress on the floor, which could not have hit 55° that night. The last few days of the month the furnace went out again, this time a broken spark plug, and we were without heat for five days... while it snowed. Just when we were starting to get into the swing of keeping the kids upstairs in the electrically heated warmth, knowing the furnace would be repaired the next morning, we were starting to breathe... when we lost power. Someone hit an electric pole on our street and just as we were putting kids in bed the lights went out. It wasn't so bad in the end. It only lasted 'til about 10:30 that night... But it was the not knowing whether it would come back on, whether we would have to wake our kids and stick them in he van, whether we could even drive the van 'cause it was the foggiest night ever... It was the not knowing whether my baby, who does not know to keep blankets on, was going to be freezing — that's what broke me.

I sat down and cried. 

This whole stupid month had just been ridiculous. After the original puking day the other kids gradually got sick, as we were trying to move in. We changed sheets about ten times that week. One night my husband spent on the non-sick kid's bed going back and forth between the two sickies, while I shared a bed with a six-year old on puke watch. Somewhere in all this chaos was Valentine's Day. A night which, had it gone according to plan, would have been all right... But in February nothing goes according to plan. Sometimes that's okay... As Waylon Jennings can attest. But as I sat, rocking a baby to sleep for the thousandth time that night, while the yummy restaurant food I'd picked up earlier sat on a table downstairs quickly getting cold, I decided February was not my favorite month. 

Now, I know. A lot of people will say, "Oh, Lauren. Count your blessings, sweetie. You spent Valentine's with your beloved husband, rocking a sweeeeet baby! What more could you ask for?" I could ask for hot food, for one thing. But mostly, I could ask for help, not judgment. I could ask for someone who hears me cry and brings me Starbucks. I could ask to be seen. I know it's petty to be upset about Valentine's Day... But I assure you that the night our power went out, with snow on the ground, after four days of not having heat on the main floor of our house, I was NOT crying petty tears. I was crying the tears of a mother who could not fix the problem facing her... A mother who could not warm her children, who could not be positive for her stressed out husband's sake, of a woman who had reached the end of her rope and now sat bundled in four blankets in a room with literally no light.

So I cried. I cried and cried. And then I stopped. I got up. I went to the kitchen and got a coke and some Reese's eggs. I drank my coke, ate my chocolate, and read a short story about beautiful food on my kindle.  The kids slept in the warm blankets, the temperature in the house held, though the outside temperature dropped. My baby woke up just enough for me to pat her sweaty back and be glad for the reassurance that she was warm. I made a contingency plan for what would happen if the power wasn't back on before midnight. 

And I felt better. Better, not because the lights were on (they weren't), but because light comes in many forms.

God is reconciling all things to himself. He is making things holy that were once lost. And James says that EVERY good thing is from our Father. He speaks holiness into the very fabric of creation; he calms our souls through any and every good thing. He gives us good food, good friends, good sleep, good places, good experiences, good books, good music... He gives us Good; and in that Good is light and life. 

And that night, when I stopped cowering and looked up to face my life, he gave me Good and it brought breath and renewal, light and life and warmth.