Mama’s weekend, my weekend, praising Him

Mama left Friday morning with one of her fellow Color Street marketers. The two of them were to pick up an additional passenger in Ft Worth, but that stylist had to cancel at the last minute. So, Melinda and Mama traveled to Austin in a pleasant, non-hurried fashion. They took the Sequoia because the expectation was that a larger vehicle would be needed to transport the team from the hotel to the conference. That was certainly the case since there were seven in the group attending together. It all worked out well Friday and Saturday as they listened together, ate together, and spent long evenings together.

Sunday was the exception. On Sunday morning I got a frantic call from Mama that something was wrong with the Sequoia. When she demonstrated the issue for me, I could see why she was so frantic. When the vehicle was started, it let off a loud bang, like a small explosion and then continued to rumble loudly – very loudly. After searching among her companions and their friends, a mechanic was found who easily diagnosed the problem. Over Saturday night, someone had stolen the catalytic converter from the Sequoia. As it turns out, Toyota’s and Honda’s have been targeted for such theft. The tow truck driver originally responding to Mama’s call to Triple A, told Mama that it was the fifth call he had had in one week for the same cause. There was much discussion and eventually the mechanic who diagnosed the problem gave Mama a solution and a price to repair the Sequoia and it was towed to his shop.

Meanwhile, Mama and her traveling companion – who is incidentally her upline in Color Street – spent an additional night in Austin. Fortunately, one in the team members above both of them in rank had planned for an extra night stay and invited the two to share her very large room in that hotel. This morning, the mechanic let Mama know that repair was more problematic than he had first thought. Not only did the thieves take the catalytic converter, but they also took the two oxygen sensors that are in the piping with the converter. Thought the mechanic was confident he could get a generic catalytic converter; he is less confident of finding the O2 sensors. We await the answer while Mama and Melinda, who refused to leave Mama on her own, spend still more time stranded in Austin. Please pray for her as the Lord works out this inconvenient situation. That this is the result of thievery leaves a very sour taste in our mouths. Although, the frustrating situation is made a bit sweeter by the comfort and companionship of friends as well as the multitude of prayer support Mama is receiving. I will say again, Color Street and the individuals who are building this network are marvelous individuals and Mama is part of a great team in Color Street.  

My weekend was far less interesting. I did go to the auction that Mama was interested in, but it was a bust. As I looked over the diverse items to be auctioned off, there were only a few I was really interested in. Fortunately, those items were among the first to be sold. Unfortunately, all of them sold for far more than I was willing to pay. Oddly enough, not everything sold high. Some things were practically given away but none of those interested me in any way. I stayed only about an hour but watched as five or more of the things for sale were passed over by the entire crowd of about sixty bidders. The house and three acres sold for about ninety thousand dollars than I would have been willing to pay, but I am not sure if it was too high for the market in our area. It certainly gave me reason to hope that the appraisal done on our property will come out somewhat higher than Mama and I have anticipated, but things do not seem to work out that way for us. Nevertheless, God is always good to us.

I worked the hives, cleaned up in the garage and the shop, cleaned out the console in the truck and generally stayed busy through the late morning and early afternoon. About 2:30 the Wycoff clan came over with two trailers to load up firewood. I thought they might be disappointed with what I had to offer but they took everything down to the three-year-old firewood laying in the pile. They virtually cleaned up the entire stack of wood. I was very pleased.

Mama was concerned that we have some firewood available to us, but I have a large stack of firewood in the barn lot that we can pull from as needed. Plus, we have three dead trees that must be cut down this winter, so we will have plenty of firewood should we be able to get our fireplace restored to service.

So, that is a short summary of our eventful and expensive weekend. I am curious to see how all this works out for our good so that we can glorify our Lord in it. He promised that it would in Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” He is always looking for our good and we are always looking for His Glory.

Time will well, but we will continue to praise Him through it all.