We have been very diligent in having our family devotions with the dc every evening, our personal devotions every morning and our devotions (dh & I together) every night before bed for the past 2 weeks. I have been feeling like God is far away, though I haven't stopped the devotions etc. Well, obviously we are doing something right and pleasing God because the Devil is really, really, really trying us. First it was the windshield on our car...it cracked and we have no idea how that happened so now we have to replace that. Then it was the faucet in the shower..it started leaking into the wall and we have the part coming to us today. Then last night it was our master bathroom toilet. The tank cracked at 9:00 pm so dh went to Lowes which is 3 minutes away (thankfully) and he found a new toilet (we couldn't get the tank off the old toilet and dh has been wanting a new, taller one anyway so why not replace it with a better one). Well we removed the old toilet without much problem. Then we realized that the subfloor was sunken in too badly to place the new toilet on it, and the valve hose that attaches to the tank was too short, the valve even in the off position was leaking causing us to have to shut off the water to the whole house overnight (Lowes closed at 10pm and we decided to wait until the morning to call a plumber so we wouldn't have to be after hours fees). Plumber came this morning and fixed the leaking valve and replaced the hose so it will reach the new tank, however when he went to replace the flooring under the toilet he realized that it was going to have to be the entire floor that needs replacing. So now we need to call our insurance company and get that taken care of. On the bright side of it, we now can have the water on without it leaking in our bathroom, we do have 2 other bathrooms we can use, we can finally replace the carpeting in the bathroom (whoever put it in there to begin with wasn't the brightest bulb in the store) with tile or linoleum. So- while I wouldn't usually blame things like this on the Devil, we (dh & I) honestly feel that it is this time because we have been faithful and are really trying to serve God with all our hearts, souls and strength! (not like we weren't before, but when the dc were gone we kind of slacked off more that we would like to admit). Please pray that the Lord would give us the strength and finances to deal with this slight bump in our road. Throughout it all we will praise the Lord, for He is awesome!!!!

Blessings,