Many of my readers have slogged through a lot of posts about us living in an RV while we, actually Husband, built our little retirement house.  You may recall the God story when an excavator volunteered his time and machines to get rid of the piles of dirt around our house. Read here.   He had told us that he felt lead by God to help us for free and any money we could give, please contribute to the building fund at church.  He took the piles and made berms on the edges of our property and smoothed large areas for lawn.  As if this wasn’t enough, he also carved us a waterfall.  So from the beginning, this landscaping project has been a God thing.  When we were gifted the waterfall excavation, we had no idea how to make a waterfall, where we would get that much rock, or how we would put the large rocks in place.  So the waterfall sat there for almost a year while other more pressing projects were attended to and while it rained for most of the Fall, Winter, and Spring.  At the beginning of Summer, we made a list of pressing projects.  We badly needed a sidewalk.  We were thoroughly sick of mud surrounding our house.  We needed a retaining wall to hold the bank around our house and give a finished look to the cut dirt.  We also needed to make the waterfall.  

We knew that God was writing a story with the waterfall and we prayed and trusted that he would provide the necessary rock.  We priced landscaping rocks and the price for the quantity we needed was prohibitive.  One day we remembered that our daughter who lives a short drive away had inherited a very large pile of very large landscaping rocks when they purchased their home three years prior.  Much of it they had used but there was still a large pile of rocks remaining.  They were happy to let us have all the rocks they had which turned out to be all the rocks we needed.  Almost.   Husband made many trips with our old pick-up heavily laden with large rocks getting help from a neighbor with an excavator to unload some of them.  The rest were unloaded with the help of a strong-backed hired helper.  The last available rock from our daughter was rolled out of the pick-up and landed with a thud in a place that was deemed just right.!  By Husband’s skill and hard work, the waterfall looked beautiful.  But just a few more rocks would finish it off just right.  Two different friends had randomly mentioned a subdivision being built in a nearby town where rocks had been piled up and folks were free to take what they wanted.  So off he went and came home with exactly the rocks needed to finish the edges of the waterfall.  As a bonus, these rocks were a contrasting color which set off the whole project beautifully.  The gurgling and splashing and sparkling water are so relaxing to sit beside.  Not to mention the entertainment of the little lesser Goldfinches that come to drink and bathe.  God gave us all we needed to finish.  Story here:

And now on to the retaining wall.  It was the 4^th of July and guess what?  Lowe’s had their retaining wall blocks on sale!  Yet another blessing.  When they delivered four pallets of block, it felt a bit daunting.  But our daughter and teenage granddaughter came to help us get started and as one block after another was laid down, things looked up.  So these two old people would get up early before the heat of the day and put down as many blocks as possible before the hot sun drove us indoors.  Our area broke heat records for number of days over 90 degrees, but the work progressed. “Oh, that’s the last block?  Too bad,” said nobody, ever.  What a difference no bare cut banks made!  Yay!  God gave us the strength to finish.

“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.  God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.”1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

Now the huge project of preparing the ground for a brick sidewalk and patio in the front of our house. Did I mention that the bricks were a gift given to us even before we started building our house?  1900 bricks, as a matter of fact.  The daughter of a couple in our small group Bible study bought a house with piles of unused brick.  They didn’t want them and generously gave them to us. In order to set the brick, we needed a 6” base of fine gravel.  That meant that the existing dirt had to be removed.  Poor husband valiantly tried to use a rototiller to loosen the dirt, but the rototiller wasn’t up to pulverizing our rock-like clay.  We shoveled and wheelbarrowed and he finally tried a pick axe, but it was too hard.  Once again, we were able to borrow the excavator, but getting the floor of the area perfectly flat and smooth in very close quarters next to the house and the aforementioned retaining wall proved to need more advanced skills and experience than Husband had.  We were praying about this dilemma when both of us thought of our new friend.  Less than a week earlier we had the joy of getting to know a casual acquaintance from church better by having them over to our house for a meal.  It came out in conversation that his career had been a heavy equipment operator.  We wondered if he would be willing to bail us out.  A phone call, and within an hour he was on the excavator and for the next 5 hours he scooped and sculpted until there was a perfect hole for our gravel base.  He didn’t charge us.  God provided a skilled person to finish for us.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”  Philippians 1:6

Of course, the bricks were in a far corner of our two acres and had to be loaded on the -you guessed it- old pick up and brought to the site, unloaded and placed.  Husband is my hero!  He spent 3 days on his hands and knees skillfully fitting bricks in a pleasing pattern.  During the loading, one pile of bricks unexpectedly tipped over.  I was leaned over picking up bricks on the ground with a broad-brimmed hat on and didn’t see it coming.  So thankful that Husband yelled and I got out of the way.  Almost.  Thankfully the bricks missed my head and only hit one shoulder and my feet.  Thankfully I had sturdy leather boots on.  The shoulder is healing.  God protected us so we could finish.

“But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.”  2 Thessalonians 3:3

So what’s the point of this tediously detailed story?  Just this.  It’s not;  Reach down deep and find strength in yourself; or You can do anything you set your mind to.  Rather it’s that we cooperate and work hard, but it’s ultimately God who provides.  He gives strength beyond our own strength.  He protects when we can’t protect ourselves.  He gives us others to come alongside and give help when the task is beyond us.  He gives rocks and bricks and excavator operators because he cares.  He brings to completion.  (And just in time.  It started to rain today!)

“Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. ”  Jude 24

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“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”  Philippians 3:12

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