Just Wait

This weekend Reid and I hosted our annual Super Bowl party. We love to host it every year, but of course that does come with some stress preparing the house and getting everything ready. I woke up early on Sunday, and was picking up around the house when I realized the upstairs toilet was still broken. I had let Reid know about it months ago (and every couple of weeks since then), but he is a professional procrastinator. And honestly we very rarely use that bathroom, so it was kind of “out of sight, out of mind”. But I was pissed. Here we were, preparing to have 25 adults and 6 kids over, and one of our toilets wasn’t working. I stormed into the bedroom and inquired as to when he was going to fix it, seeing as we needed it TODAY. We had so many other things to do that day, and now he has to take a toilet apart. I started explaining to him that now I see that being a 3 hour job (yes, I like to over-dramatize the situation from time to time) and then what if he can’t fix it and now we don’t have any extra time to spend on it. His response: “I understand that you’re mad I haven’t done it yet. But can you at least wait until I actually fail to fix it before you get mad that I can’t?”

Wow. What a profound thing to say.

I am Christian, but I wouldn’t say I’m super religious. And lately I’ve been very mad at God. While my overall attitude has been better, I wouldn’t say that it’s because I’ve put my trust in God that everything will work out. In fact, I’ve started to distrust Him. Some days I’ve decided that He isn’t going to “fix” our situation, so I become really angry with Him. But truth is, His time’s not up yet. I just can’t see the full plan. The party hasn’t started. I have to say though, even typing that out makes my skin crawl. Because I’ve heard so many times throughout this journey “God has a plan”, and while yes, that’s true, sometimes I want to punch the person telling me that because it’s usually not a good time for me to hear it. But it’s the truth. Months ago, when I mentioned the broken toilet, I can 100% guarantee you that Reid didn’t think “Oh, I better fix that because we’ll need to use that toilet during Super Bowl.” He didn’t know the full plan. And we don’t either.

Halfway through Reid fixing the toilet, I went upstairs to check on him and saw the complete mess that was the bathroom. Tools were strewn everywhere and the toilet parts were laying on the ground. It only increased my anxiety, because I just couldn’t see that mess turning back into my clean bathroom. But that’s where we are right now… the mess. The parts are out of place, and the tools are laying all over the floor. But He’s working on us.

Thanks for that reminder, God. I do believe that my Mema had something to do with that message. And it makes me smile just thinking about it.

Oh, and Reid would like you all to know that the toilet DID get fixed. With plenty of time to spare.