God Is Good. All The Time.

God is Good! All the Time!
First things first: Congratulations to my Brother Allen and his beautiful wife Virginia on the birth of their 2nd son Shane Alexander Donaldson!!!!!
Mother and Baby are fine or so I am told.
God bless you all.

It's Saturday morning and I am playing tyrant with my two kids.
Clean up the house time!
I have sort of a "General and his troops" thing going.
I sit here barking orders while they do the work.
I don't feel too bad about doing it either.
I know they will have the rest of the afternoon to themselves to do whatever they want.
My afternoon? IT's Meter Reading Time!
Dea and I went out all day yesterday and got most of the meters read already.
It is quite possible we could actually finish today if the Lord is willing; If not, then prayerfully tomorrow.

We would have had a lot more done but for a couple of situations.
Last month I was prepared.
I had a "come-a-long" winch, a tow strap and a shovel for just in case we got stuck, but Dave and Dottie's little Geo Tracker did an awesome job pushing it's way through the snow so we didn't need any of it.
Last week I was cleaning out the car and with the weather being so nice, I put all those things away.
We left yesterday morning without any of it.
I actually was thinking we would get through the day without even using the 4 Wheel Drive.
Silly me.
The pavement was nice and dry everywhere but there is still some snow in the places that have heavy trees and shadow.
Well, to make a longer story not so short,
the Tracker is light enough to ride up on top of the crusty snow instead of through it.
For a very short time.
Then the elevator dropped.
If you slip off a road then usually you only have one part of the car to "dig out".
This was more of a tiger trap we dropped into.
Using a four inch wide plastic ice scraper as a shovel we had to unbury the whole car.
Thankfully a nearby homeowner (who wasn't supposed to be home by his account) just happened by to loan us a shovel.
The poor guy even wound up face first in the snow when he tripped trying to push us out.
It worked out well for us both.
He canceled a trip just to come check on his property which helped us out a lot!
If we had just walked in (instead of chancing the snow), then he would have driven in and been stuck all alone.
In the end, we were on our way within the hour, and he was parked on the side of the road instead of stuck in the snow.
God is Good. All the Time.

I might have mentioned before that we consider this the "ugly time of the year".
While the temperatures are nice and the sun shines more; The snow is on full melt and what isn't paved is either frozen, crusty, or turned to mud.
Some of that mud is really, really bad.
We were trying to drive up to this house on a cranberry marsh thinking to ourselves that it must be "drive-able" because the owners have to get there right?
Well, still in two wheel drive, we made it up this mud driveway with my knuckles white on the steering wheel.
As we get to the house there is no car, only a very large tractor.
Now we know how the owner gets home.
Still we made it to the house in two wheel drive, certainly we should be able to get back 0ut in four wheel drive right?
Again, silly me.
Only because of the angels pushing the car.
First after we locked the hubs into four wheel I started back out and forgot to engage the differential (shifter) into four wheel drive.
Thankfully Dea noticed and I made the shift before too far.
That helped.
For a while.
The car was sliding back and forth and unfortunately slid us to the opposite side of the driveway from where we drove in on.
I couldn't go back in the tracks I had made coming in.
Still it all looked level.
My mistake. Again.
I was trying to keep the momentum up but we hit a hole.
There is no better word for it.
Hole.
The car was slowing down and I was trying to get it to go faster.
Then we sort of "listed" like a boat about to sink.
The car leaned over on it's side and we almost came to a stop as the water and mud was rising up higher and higher.
I remember thinking if we get stuck here this will finish the day.
We are SO going to be a MESS when we are done digging here.
This was the kind of mud you stick your foot in and when you pull it out you find that you left your shoe behind.
A kind of tax for having stepped there.
You pay with your shoe.

I did mention that God is Good. All the time. Right?
We should have been stuck.
We should have lost our shoes and had to burn our clothes (because I doubt that stuff would ever come out).
Instead, we -by God's Grace- kept moving.
Maybe a mile an hour or so but we were moving.
Eventually the car tilted back up right and we drove out laughing and praising God.
Yes God is Good.
All the Time.

I pray the rest of this day is also filled with laughter but perhaps without the trials and tense moments...
Will.