God’s Faithfulness Through the Storm…
A Testimony of God Answering Prayer…
Our house got flooded during Harvey and we waded through waist-deep flood water with our then 2-year-old and 5-month-old daughters. God has answered so many prayers to get our family through this trial. After months of delay due to paperwork with various agencies, we were ready to repair our house 9 months after the flood.
We had little experience in renovating a house, especially when it had no walls, doors and floors! Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a reliable and reasonably priced general contractor for the project so we ended up managing the subcontractors ourselves. Like any renovation project, each step of the repair is heavily dependent on successful completion of the prior step. We had no back up plan if any of these steps fell out. We prayed about many specific details on the project as we encountered them. We had to rely on God to come through for every single step. If any steps got screwed up we would be stuck.
We prayed about the additional studs that we measured and installed ourselves in the bathrooms to support some Ikea floating cabinets. We had no prior experience using power tools and just picking the right screws and lumber took us a few trips to the Home Depot. The studs added turned out in the perfect locations for cabinet installation while we knew that we had only about 1/2″ margin for error at some spots.
God also answered our prayers on finding a handyman with experience in installing Ikea bathroom cabinets. We couldn’t find anyone for quite some time but we took a risk and hired someone off the internet. That handyman turned out to be a research scientist at MD Anderson who was 6 foot tall and strong and loved assembling Ikea furniture as a side job. Without his passion for accuracy, our cabinet plan would probably have stalled. God provided the best person possible to install our barely fit bathroom cabinets.
We can keep going on and on with specific examples on how God met our needs one by one.
During the 5-month long repair, we had to repeatedly turn our anxiety about “what if it doesn’t fit…” over to God trusting that He will provide for us. He guided and provided for us through every step of the way and we moved back home just in time to celebrate Thanksgiving in 2018, 15 months after Harvey flooded our home.
I’d like to end with the two verses packed with pillows donated to us from work. God’s promises are our only hope when we felt overwhelmed and discouraged during the recovery process.
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
(Isaiah 41:10 ESV)
“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
(Deuteronomy 31:8 NIV)
Praise God for His faithfulness!