March 24: Contentment and Rats

CONTENTMENT SCRIPTURES

Jer. 32:27 “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” 

Psa. 145:3-7 Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised,

And His greatness is unsearchable. 

  One generation shall praise Your works to another,

And shall declare Your mighty acts. 

On the glorious splendor of Your majesty

And on Your wonderful works, I will meditate. 

Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts,

And I will tell of Your greatness. 

  They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness

And will shout joyfully of Your righteousness. 

Contentment in God

Everything about our lives is determined and influenced by our view of God...How we view God will change the way we live, the amount of trust we have in Him and how we relate with others.  (Bill Bright, God: Discover His Character)

[excerpted from Contentment: A Matter of the Heart 

by Karen Horsey / Karen's Kreations]

===================================================

You're wondering...rats? How can you be content with rats?  I'm like any other female and want to run at the sight of one of them.  Thankfully, most men are not that way although I doubt most do not want to handle them or have them near.  We own a rental house in our city (my husband's childhood home that we remodeled).  In both 2008 and 2009 we had tropical storm and fallen tree damage to the house.  Each was a huge dip into our savings basically making us start over saving each year.  Needless to say, for someone like me, it was very stressful but we prayed and trusted God for provision and He has provided all we have needed.  The storms uprooted two ancient oak trees in the yard and rats got into the house both times.  Again, $$ as we paid exterminators to take care of the problem. At the time, we had a male tenant who was much more patient than females probably would have been.  They most likely would have moved the next day, but he stayed until the middle of last summer.  

The month after he left and the rat problem had ended, new tenants, a young couple moved into the house.  We have monthly pest control maintenance to prevent anything from happening again.  Somehow, last weekend, another rat got into the house.  Again, a bit of a panic for me, but I remembered what God had done previously and just let my husband handle everything.  The pest control man came, another opening was discovered that we had never seen before (it had been there for a couple of years).  Amazingly, no other rats had discovered it since it was basically a gate into the house.  We were able to get repairmen come the next morning to repair the hole.  (These are Christian friends of ours with a private business called  All Things Maintenance.  They do  excellent handywork if you are in the Orlando area.) I thought the tenants might move, but to my utter amazement told us that they'd like to rent for another year!  God is good, all the time.