Sunday, January 3, 2016

Keeping Our Heads Above Water - Chapter 6

January 3, 2016


Chuck and I have been blessed with so much.......


So when I opened up my computer this morning and saw that our sweet daughter-in-law Jennifer had started a "GoFundMe" account for our expenses incurred by this flood, well.....I've got to tell you....between tears of gratitude, I felt the sting of guilt.  There are so many...SO MANY....around this lake who have been hit so much harder than us.  So many who haven't had the support, the friends, the family, the church to rally around them, the arms wrapped around them and lifting them up and loving the heck out of them like we have.  I have felt every-single-day this week as if we have been given gift after gift after gift after gift......


We will be okay.  We will survive this storm better than we started.  We're already better than we were before the rains started this time last week....and I'm not talking about wood floors or sheetrock or kitchen cabinets or furniture.  I'm talking about relationships...about open eyes....about crazy love from your hand to ours...about your prayers heaven-bound with our names on them.  We have been humbled and blessed beyond words.


And yesterday our kids came in and kicked some bad butt on this house of ours.  The front door was warped and not shutting...so our friend Beau cut a beam that had floated up into our flower bed from someone's dock, jacked it up and whalla.....our door shuts and locks now!  Who knew we'd be blessed by a piece of someone's dock....


And the grandchildren and their friends, with hammer in hand, a Christmas ornament box as a trash can and a shovel, did some major restoration on this house of ours.  They are the coolest, hardest working kids ever!


We moved the furniture from one side of the house to the other side of the house so renovation can start tomorrow.  We power washed rugs on the deck all day (thanks Chuck Armstrong!!) and we met with the contractor to determine what this is going to cost us.  OUCH.

Flood Insurance.  Unfortunately, normal household flood insurance you add to your homeowners policy is simply not available here.  FEMA emergency flood insurance is the only coverage available and its minimal in coverage.  Very minimal in coverage.  It wouldn't have covered our expenses here if we had had it.


And at the end of a long, hard-working day.....as the sun started its way down, we played.  We fished, we paddle-boarded, we canoed in that ugly green canoe in what once was our backyard.....and will be again one day.  All is well in the Etheridge home.....because we have love living here, friends. 













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