It Took Flight

A couple of weeks ago we had a storm pop up in the middle of the night.  High winds, heavy rains, a little bit of hail.  It woke me which isn't unusual.  What was unusual was it woke Steven.  Let this be known that I could punch Steven in the face and he would just roll over. He. Sleeps. Hard.  Real hard.

Since the storm woke him at 1:30am, he did what any normal person would do in the middle of the night, he went look out our back windows.  That's when I heard him.  "It's gone!"

I wasn't fully awake, "What's gone?"

"The trampoline.  It's gone."


I squinted through the rain and darkness and he was right.  The trampoline was no where to be found.  Our hearts sank.  Our kids love that thing.  Not a day goes by that they aren't out there jumping.  They were going to be devastated when they woke.

After the initial sadness for the kids wore off, we came to our senses to realize if it wasn't in our backyard, it had to be somewhere.  We quickly looked out all of the side and front windows.  That's when we saw it.  Two houses down in our neighbor's driveway.  A crumbled mess.  Knowing our neighbor would need to leave for work in the morning, we trudged outside in our jammies, in the rain and hail to pull the mess back to our yard.

Let me just say I have never been so thankful for my husband's strength as I was that night.  We were getting  soaked and the rain was only getting heavier.  The little hail pellets were stinging my skin.  As I was scrambling around picking up loose springs and poles, I peered through the downpour to see my husband pick up the vast majority of the trampoline, heave it over his head, and walk it to the backyard.  I have never thought him sexier.

Once we gathered all the pieces we could find, we headed inside to dry off and prayed.  Prayed that the trampoline would be salvageable.  It wasn't.

There was no way that at this moment we would shell out another $150 for a new trampoline.  We had just done that 3 months ago.  So I asked God for wisdom.  Then it hit me.  Our tramp had about 4 pieces that needed to be replaced.  We would just buy new replacement pieces.  Nope.  Another dead end.  Replacement pieces were $50/piece.  That would be more expensive than buying a new one.

I tried another avenue.  I put out on facebook that we were looking for some pieces to fit a 14 ft trampoline. A few gracious people responded, but guess what?  Their pieces didn't work.  There had to be an answer.  I wasn't going to lose hope.

Days passed and Little Man started asking when he would be able to jump again. I told him soon enough, knowing it was going to take a little divine intervention for the trampoline to go back up in the 'soon enough' time frame.  Being just a bit desperate, I told Little Man we should ask God to provide us a way to put ours back up.

Within hours, my former boss from a daycare I worked at while in college responded to my facebook plea. She said she had a 14ft frame that she was tired of moving around when she mowed.  We could have it.  SAY WHAT???  Steven picked it up and we are now back in business!!!

You know, God never ceases to amaze me.  Just like the ring experience, I was blessed from a circumstance (in this case a job I took) from years ago.  All I have to say is God cares for us and our children far more than we could imagine.  He is interested in the details of our life.  He is in the business of blessing us.  Heck, he's even in the business of trampolines, and we couldn't be more thankful.