**If you missed “Part 1” and "Part 2" of me retelling some moments that occurred during the last six months of 2021, trust me, you want to read it! This blog post is a continuation of such.
That night, I went into my prayer closet and pulled out my journal.
“Lord, thank You for our health.
Thank You for our home.
Thank You for my marriage.
Thank You for these children.
Thank You for the AC Unit that is allowing us to stay in our home.
Thank You for allowing us to be home to quickly catch this leak.
And can You give us $12,000 in the next few days?
I know You can do it.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
Over the next few days, it appeared that the water leak didn’t cause any noticeable damage.
I was thankful because it didn’t feel like I had any more room to add to my plate.
We were still waiting for our AC to be fixed. At night, we’d carry a AC window unit to our bedroom, and my husband, myself, and two kiddos would all fall asleep in the same room (our three-year-old son loved this), and then during the day, my husband would carry the 60-pound AC unit downstairs to cool the downstairs while I stayed home with our two kiddos.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I discovered a musty smell coming from underneath our kitchen cabinets. I knew I smelled the beginning stages of mold.
With me being pregnant and having small kiddos, I knew it was only a matter of time before things could possibly escalate into a dangerous situation.
I called a mold specialist to come out and evaluate our home.
On the morning that the mold specialist was scheduled to visit, a bathroom tile fell from our bathroom wall fell while my husband was showering.
“******,” my husband yelled in frustration. “That’s it. I’m so done with this house.”
I knew that my husband was joking (maybe he was slightly serious), but if we had a nice little down payment sitting in our bank account and if I weren't pregnant and well into my third trimester, I would have begun packing myself.
By this point, despite our inward thoughts and frustrations, my husband and I tended to abide by an unspoken rule between the two of us: when issues arise, keep your head down, refrain from complaining, and move forward by focusing on the solution rather than the current problem.
Within a few minutes, the mold specialist arrived.
He only confirmed what I knew to be true. The molding at the bottom of our kitchen cabinets were beginning to rot and we most likely had mold growing underneath the cabinets as well. The only way to verify this suspicion would be to completely gut the entire kitchen in order to mitigate any potential mold.
I braced myself before hearing the cost to do all of this.
“I’d have to go back to the office and run a few numbers before sending you a quote,” the mold specialist said with calculation. His eyes held empathy as I noticed him glancing every now and then to my growing womb, my messy living room filled with overflowing children's books, and my two small kiddos who found it perfectly fine to continue spewing out their morning demands in front of a complete stranger.
I took a deep breath.
“Okay cool. Hey, before you go, do you mind looking at our master bathroom? We had a bathroom tile fall from the wall, and I just want to make sure that there isn’t any mold there too.” I have no idea where I got the idea to ask this.
“Yeah, of course,” he complied.
It didn’t take the mold specialist long to give his analysis. We definitely had black mold in the wall of our bathroom shower. This mold had nothing to do with the water leak we’d experienced weeks prior. The mold specialist theorized that the mold had probably been growing behind the tile of our bathroom wall long before we even bought our home, which was less than two years ago at the time, due to a lack of sealing around the tiles of our bathroom wall.
Here we were…requesting a mold specialist to review our kitchen for mold, not knowing that we had mold growing in our bathroom shower all along. What stunned me was that we wouldn’t have known that we had mold in our bathroom unless a bathroom tile fell on the exact morning that the mold specialist planned to come to our home.
You can’t make this stuff up.
God seriously takes care of His children.
The mold specialist awkwardly smiled before leaving. He was young and newly engaged. I hoped that the very felt chaos witnessed in our home didn’t traumatize him from ever wanting to have kids.
Before stepping out of our front door, the young man turned around and tried to piece together a word of encouragement.
“You know…I noticed that you have a lot of scriptures up in your home. You guys are doing something right,” he said without really pausing for me to reply. I knew this was his way of saying that everything would be all right. His pace picked up as he walked back to his truck.
“Thank you,” I said, whether to him or to God…I’m not sure.
A few hours later, we received the quote from the mold specialist.
I braced myself. After reading the report, I told my husband the amount to simply treat the mold (never mind the cost to repair and buy new cabinetry, countertops, backsplash, and bathroom tiles, etc. after treating the mold).
“Okay,” he said.
My husband didn’t flinch upon realizing the scope of work that would need to be done. He didn’t say anything either and just nodded his head as if to note that this was beyond his control and that he wouldn’t worry about it.
His response felt reminiscent.
It reminded me of the time I sat on the barstool of my parent’s kitchen counter as a little girl. At the time, both of my parent’s cars had just broken down. It was a Sunday evening and I vividly recall my dad sitting at our kitchen table figuring out how his four little girls would get to school in the morning, as well as him and my mom to work.
Even as a little girl, I knew that my dad’s demeanor didn’t make logical sense. It just seemed like one bad thing was happening after the other, while he seemed like a little bird perched on a frail branch, singing to his heart’s content without fear of falling.
I sat at the counter confused.
“Daddy.”
My dad looked up from his notepad.
“How are you not worried about what we’re going to do?” I inquired with genuine intrigue. I anticipated a concrete answer, as I would if I had asked, “Where does rain come from?”
I don’t remember what he said, but I recall the instantaneous smile that swept across his face and the sheer calm that illuminated his eyes.
Yes, a familiar calm pierced my husband’s eyes too.
What do they call it? A peace that surpasseth all understanding (Philippians 4:7)?
I went to sleep and my husband and I didn’t speak any further about the matter.
The next morning, my husband asked me to reach out to a family friend who was a contractor.
“Ask her for advice, Jess,” my husband casually requested the next morning while walking out the door.
I texted our older family friend and she called shortly after.
“You need to file a claim with your insurance,” she advised with a sense of urgency.
“Oh. I know we have a pretty high deductible. I ruled out this option.”
I told her our deductible and she paused.
“Still call your insurance company and file a claim,” she advised. Her tone was that of a mother instructing her daughter.
“Okay. I’ll do it right now.”
I called our home insurance and filed two separate claims. Our insurance scheduled a time for an adjuster to come out to evaluate the damages. Come to find out, our deductible was much lower than I initially suspected but still high enough to make me think that this process was a lost cause.
After a few weeks, we received the adjuster’s final assessment.
I called our family friend again for advice.
“Oh, no! ” she exclaimed after reading through the report. She began rattling off terms that I knew nothing about.
“We will fix this,” she assured.
And she did.
After much back and forth with our insurance company, we received a check for close to $30K six weeks before my due date.
Instead of $12K, God blessed us with MORE THAN double the amount that I requested of Him that night in my prayer closet. Praise God for the wisdom, counsel, and work done through our family friend. She was literally a God-send to us.
In December of 2020, I placed on my vision board to have a new backsplash and countertops in our kitchen in 2021. My husband had just left his corporate job and was starting his own business. With the uncertainty that comes along with beginning a business and with the instability of the market during a pandemic, I wasn't quite sure how we’d possess these tangible items in 2021. All I knew was that I was tired of looking at our old tile countertops. I was also tired of scrubbing the grout hoping to get rid of stains, dirt, and bacteria.
Do you know that the Lord blessed us with every material item I placed on our vision board (except for a used piano for our son, but hey, the year isn’t over!)? My vision board included large sections on what I planned on doing in 2021 and prayers for the woman I desired to become. But to be honest, I most enjoyed writing my “what to have this year” portion of my vision board! From a specific vacuum cleaner that I wanted us to have… to a particular map of the world…to funds for an incredible family photoshoot. The Lord blessed us! The largest of all was a new kitchen entirely. I had no idea the Lord would provide a new kitchen for us…by means of a frustrating water leak.
With six weeks left until my due date, we prayed that the renovations could be done speedily.
Again, I didn’t predict what was about to transpire next.
Before
After
(*This picture was taken before our drawers and cabinet doors were installed. ’ll update this when I get a chance).