My daughter is pregnant with twins. When she called to tell me the results of her ultrasound and told me there would be two blessings arriving around Thanksgiving I had to pull the car over because a) I was so shocked that I thought I might run into a pole and b) I was so overwhelmed with happiness I was crying.
After the initial shock wore off and I was alone I thought about how God is so full of surprises.
You see, when I was eight years old my big brother and I had made a “clubhouse” out of an old shed on our property. The outside walls were pretty sturdy but the roof had some pretty big holes in it. Being kids we didn’t think about working on the roof before we put our club materials – toys, our self-created band instruments, books and notebooks, an old chair from the garage, and some cardboard boxes, in the shed.
Low and behold, unexpected to us but not to our folks, the rain was forecast and we were hard pressed to put something over the roof. If I recall correctly, we decided cardboard boxes would work just fine to keep out most of the rain. So we moved all our assets to the areas not directly under holes and then began our repairs.
I should also point out that our repairs were made easier by two things. First, there was a large tree on our neighbor’s lot whose branches hung over the shed giving added protection from heat and slowed the amount of rain our little house took in. Second, their was a wooden fence right next to the shed that allowed us to lean over the roof to do our work versus standing on the roof itself.
Up to this point we really hadn’t taken stock of the situation including the fact that the shingles on the roof were so old the gray textured part had separated from the black tar part underneath and what was left of any of it was covered in moss.
As it started to mist and then lightly rain, my brother and I furiously lifted pieces of cardboard, placed them over the holes and set large rocks on top of them. All-in-all, a pretty good fix-it job for an eight and eleven year old.
Our parents didn’t know that we were fixing the roof, they thought we were just covering our valuables inside. Had they known, I am sure they would have told us not to get on the fence when it was wet. Because, what happened next was something they would have anticipated.
As we went to climb down from the fence my wet shoes slipped and I fell, straddling the fence, before I ended up on the ground. My sweet brother carried me into the house and to our mom, who along with our dad, took me to the doctor.
Long story short, we were told that I may never be able to have children. So what an absolute thrill it was for my husband and me when we found out that I was pregnant for the first time. It was the most remarkable surprise.
Twenty-nine years later we are going to be grandparents to not only our adorable three-year-old granddaughter, but now also to twins. Thank you, God, for surprises.