Can you take it in stride when the floor's caving in?

It is hard to take life "in stride". Tera's room had a mysterious hump in the carpet which has gotten worse. The dip near the hump is now very weak and saging. So basically it seems the floor in that spot is caving in. JP has reassured me that won't happen but with everything else we have had to deal with it is hard to take it "in stride". We have left a message for the landlord about it but we will have to wait and see. As I was on the verge of tears this morning, I sat down with my devotional books- a mom's devotion and my Oswald Chambers "My Utmost Devotion Bible". That is usually where I head when things to me look darkest and it always seems there is something there that speaks to my situation. The first thing I read was that God is our rescuer and we need to wait patiently for him to deliver us. It may not be the way that we would like but He never abandons us or deserts us even when the floor around us seems like it is caving in. In Oswald Chambers the devotion was entitled "The Shape of the Vision".

It reads:
Thank God for the sight of all you have never yet been. The vision is not an ectasy or a dream, but a perfect understanding of what God wants, it is the divine light making manifest the calling of God. You may call the vision an emotion or a desire, but it is something that absorbs you. Learn to thank God for making known His demands. You have had the vision, but you are not there yet by any means. You have seen what God wants you to be but what you are not yet. Are you prepared to have this "iron dug from central gloom" battered into "shape and use"? "Battering" conveys the idea of a blacksmith putting good metal into right useful shape. The batterings of God come in commonplace days and commonplace ways. God is using the anvil to bring us into the shape of the vision. The length of time it takes God to do it depends upon us. If we prefer to loll on the mount of transfiguration, to live on the memory of the vision, we are of no use to live with the ordinary stuff of which human life is made up. We have not to live always in ectasy and conscious contemplation of God, but to live in reliance on what we saw in the vision when we are in the midst of actualities. It is when we are going through the valley to prove whether we will be the "choice" ones, that most of us turn tail; we are not prepared for the blows which must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision.

I definitely will not tuck my tail between my legs and run away from the battle but I will learn to rely more and more upon the One who has already won the war!