The last two weeks have been absolutely dreadful, yet they started with so much promise. The second phase of framing for my addition was supposed to start, which was originally supposed to be done last fall, so there definitely some excitement for this to finally be happening. This part of the framing included ripping off the back part of my house’s roof. Guess where this is going – no roof? That’s risky. I had spent the previous two weekends ripping out the trim and drywall preparing for the framers. Preparing also included moving beds to various parts of the house – exciting yet awful. With the beds and dressers moved into the main living areas we have a very snuggly house, which is a nice way to say we’re living like hoarders – how do they do it? All this rearranging is what dreams are made of… by really weird people. I prefer order over chaos. On the plus side, last fall I was told the wood to frame everything would be just under $30k and then in March when the framers did the first part of the addition, the cost had dropped $9k. That was a huge blessing. Based on what was left on the list for the second phase given to me by Rona, I only needed $6000 left in materials. I was feeling pretty good about this… and then the framer came to my house and asked, “Where’s the rest of the wood?” It turned out there was a special side order called an engineering floor plan that was a whole other list of wood. I didn’t know what that was, but back in March I put in the request for it like the framer told me to do – I do as I’m told. When I sent in the blueprints the guy at Rona emailed back, “This will work.” In May I emailed to ask about it and he didn’t respond, but I assumed it was fine, especially since I figured if it was that important the framer would be pushing for it – and what happens when we assume? Great things… when “great” is used like in calling it the “Great” War. My result was less death (fortunately), but it led to a week of havoc since the guy from Rona was wrong – the drawings I sent didn’t work and nothing had been done. He even conveniently deleted the emails I had sent him. Fortunately, I was able to forward them to him and the manager to prove I wasn’t another liar.
Some of the wood we needed arrived the following Monday, which meant the framers were set back a week. Since I had already paid my $20k in wood, I assumed there was only a little it left – nope. I was then given $16k bill – what! Finding out I owed that much money, especially when I’m cheap was kind of like the start of the flu when you want to throw up but can’t – you just stay nauseous. The next day my wife got a notice from the CRA saying she owed $2500 because her one boss made a tax mistake. That week I also had to pay a speeding ticket I received by photo radar. I was caught doing 13km over the speed limit – who cares about 13km over? That experience taught me that getting a ticket in the mail leaves you feeling violated. Photo radar has nothing to do with safety, which should be the purpose of speed limits.
Add to the unexpected $20k week, I also learned credit cards can take 2-5 business days to receive money transferred online. I had transferred money on the Friday before Canada Day and the person at MasterCard said it could be until the following Monday before I was able to use my card because apparently computer systems take weekends and holidays. Nothing made any sense and I was feeling pretty helpless, which is a great way to stir up emotions.
After the first terrible week, I told myself on the Monday, “It’s a new week,” but it turned out a new week meant new problems including severe issues with the drawings I had originally paid professionals to do. Fun fact, I recently learned from several different sources who regularly deal with architects is the majority of them have little practical experience (or social skills), so things “work” on paper, but they aren’t the best way to do them and almost always cost more than if the specialists like the framer chose how to do the work themselves – I’m glad the government forces us to use this set up. My favourite moment was the framer calling the engineer the architect hired to help with the drawing: “The roof consists of two eyebeam joists beside each other repeated across the roof; how do I insulate between them?” And the engineer’s response, a man with years of schooling and experience was “I don’t know. Talk to the architect.” When the framer asked the architect, his response was “That’s a good question. I don’t know.” How do you design something that you don’t know how to make work? Here’s a better question: how did the city approve plans that included a missing support wall? Walls don’t float, but this one was supposed to – brilliant. The original drawings had to be redone 3 times because the architect had so many mistakes, yet the city missed that? Does anyone at a desk know what they’re doing? They would if training included actual construction work.
To add to the joy, there was an issue getting some of the joists because they were an unusual size (another thank you to the architect and engineer). The joists eventually arrived on the second Fri, a week after the other wood was delivered and two weeks after they should have originally been sent if Rona had done the engineered floor plan as requested. Delays in construction are expected, but my framers had a two week window to do my week and a half job before they went on holidays for a week. Guess what that meant? That’s right. I now had all the material at my house, but I’ve had a tarp on half my roof for this past week while the framers are on vacation. And when I write “roof” I don’t mean a roof with plywood. No, that would make sense. My roof is the eyebeams that the architect didn’t know how to insulate with a tarp on them. And guess what happened Saturday night – rain. The tarp was not happy about the rain and “cried” into the house. My wife and I frantically got out small tarps and buckets upstairs to catch the tears and fortunately only ended up with a little water damage in the kitchen. Then it was Sunday night – a lot more tears. The weather was calling for clouds, but it turned out those clouds brought rain, very angry rain. The tarps and buckets that worked the night before were a fraction of what we needed – more panic. While working upstairs doing whatever I could to stop the water coming in, my wife went to the kitchen and found a giant pool of water on the floor because there was a serious leak happening that had nothing to do with the tarp area. Fortunately I was able to rearrange the upstairs to essentially create a roof inside the house to shoot the incoming water to an opening to the outside and I was able to make something to protect the kitchen from further damage. I wish that was the end… no. The next night we didn’t have rain – yea! We had wind – crap! I couldn’t sleep as the tarp flapped in the wind and the weather was calling for worse winds to come. Fortunately, I had a break in my work day and was able to screw boards on the roof to prevent the extreme flapping.
If you had asked me, “What is the worst case scenario for your framing?” this was way beyond what I could’ve predicted. Our entire addition, which was supposed to have been completed last fall has been consistently worse than the worst case scenarios. Fortunately, the disasters we had last fall in the long run worked out for our benefit, but this time the disasters seem to have upgraded and I’m not seeing the future silver lining.
Even though I have the level of grounded faith you’d expect an ordained pastor to have, over the last few weeks I was left asking, “Why did God allow this?” “Why didn’t God direct me to a better architect or lead me working with someone at Rona who wasn’t useless?” (Workers at another Rona were told our situation and they guessed who I had been talking to because he has a reputation). I have been praying for guidance and wisdom almost two years for this addition, but I consistently seem to make the wrong choices.
By the weekend of the rain, I kept asking myself was this the devil messing with me or did God not want me to do this project in the first place because in many ways this project seems cursed. This questioning was amplified Sunday night when my wife was weeping and I stared at the damage in the kitchen wondering how we were going to get through the week the framers are away when it was calling for more rain.
Here’s the interesting thing about prayer – sometimes you get answers. At the original church I was a youth pastor at, I signed up to have an older gentleman include me on his weekday Bible verse emails. For some reason last week I discovered a lot of his emails were being sent to my spam, but I fixed that and on the Monday after the tarp cried, the daily email said, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Pet 5:8) That was interesting because I had asked that very question: Is it the devil? Maybe that was a coincidence, but then I noticed I had another Bible verse email: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10) Okay, that’s also pretty on the nose. Then I noticed there was a third email: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mat 28:20) Call this coincidence, but it was pretty incredible how all three verses were completely in line with my prayers the night before. Then, out of the blue, my sister sent me a text after hearing about the Sunday night and wrote: “Honestly, your strength is super human. What has been thrown at you this last year alone has been insane. Your family is so lucky to have you.” That was another message I really needed to hear because I couldn’t help, but feel like a huge failure with this addition – how could I make so many bad decisions? The Sunday night trying to stop the incoming rain I had the lyrics to a song going through my head: “It falls apart/ From the very start/ It falls apart/ Seems like everything I touch/ Falls apart.” I couldn’t remember who sang it, but for this post I looked up the lyrics. It’s by Thousand Foot Krutch, a Christian rock band, and the lyrics continue: “Everything around me/ Falls apart/ When I walk away from you.” That’s another message I needed, which means I ended up with five incredibly timed messages. God’s either showing off or the coincidence level is off the charts.
Does God talk to people? I find He speaks differently to us depending on our relationship and personality. For instance, I don’t have the gift of prophecy, but I find He will give me these “taps” that tell me to do something kind for someone I wouldn’t typically think to do myself. On very rare occasions (very, very rare occasions), I get messages like this that are encouraging. Are they coincidence? We believe what we want to believe and I’m clearly biased, but to me they’re God’s way of reaching out to me.
Bonus: I rarely talk to my mom about my posts, but I mentioned this one to her and after I finished sharing about the verses, text, and song, my mom smiled and said, “Sunday night I prayed God would give you a verse.” How do you not feel comforted in times like these? There definitely is a practical benefit to following Jesus.
So how do we hear from God? The only way to hear from God is to listen. This means we need to have things in place to allow Him to speak like daily reading the Bible and/or doing devotions, listening to Christian music, having daily verses emailed to you, regularly being in church, spending time in nature, having times of silence like in the car, and having Christian friends and influences since God can speak through people. Like any conversation, we also need to be asking questions: (God) “Yes, this is the devil messing with you, but I’m here; trust me. Good will come out of this. It worked out last fall. It will work out again. I have more power than he does.”
What’s interesting is the way we hear from God involves the same things we need to be doing for our partners: Be available for talking, give space for the other person to share, ask questions, and have set times for connecting like at dinner or walks after dinner.
Bonus: After the rain settled I tried to see the good since that’s the healthy approach for healing. My conclusion was I’m very grateful we had the smaller rain Saturday, so my upstairs was in better shape for the torrential rain Sunday night. I’m also very grateful I was at home and available. I’m grateful the damage in the kitchen was drywall and not the cupboards. I’m grateful God has given me some construction experience and the creative mind to come up with the solutions I put in place to reduce the water damage. I’m grateful my wife was there to help, so I wasn’t alone Saturday night and then Sunday night my mom happened to be there and was a big help. I was also grateful to see my five year old understand what was happening and while my wife and I were putting out buckets, she brought a couple of her toy buckets upstairs to offer us.
This week may you consider how you can be available and make room to talk to God and your partner.
Rev Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)