Ant Hills, Drowned Rats, and Giving Thanks

It was only Tuesday and already Mary was tired. Yet she was excited. On Saturday in the middle of them moving three rooms around the agent phoned to say they had someone that wanted to look at the house that afternoon at 2.30pm. Internally, Mary was in hysterics realizing the absurdities of the situation. Mary discussed the timing with Robin who didn’t seem to have a problem with it. However, Mary explained the situation to the realtor who phoned the other agent. He graciously offered to come later between 3.30 and 4pm.
If you have ever watched an ant hill when someone has come along to disturb it you can visual the scene that took place on this pretty little street in Amherstburg. Mary and Robin worked diligently running back and forth to their nest, lifting and moving stuff much bigger than themselves, and stepping on each other in the process. But exactly at 4pm when the second bed was put into place and made up in the room that had been Robin’s office there came a knock on the door! It had been God’s perfect timing.
Mary answered the door and to her surprise was this agent she had begun to see all over the place whether in the newspaper, on billboards, or wherever she went. This was a good sign to Mary as she had never recognized how much she had seen him around until she saw him in person. She had remarked to herself many times how much she thought he looked like Windsor’s mayor. Now here he stood in front of her smiling away and as sweet as could be. With him was a woman in her 40’s and a young teenager.
Mary smiled at the three of them. “Hi, there”, she said. As she did Mary handed him a piece of paper with her cell phone on it. Then she explained: “My husband and I will take the dogs for a walk to the park so you can phone us there. Just give me a second to get out the back door and come on in. We have an excitable Jack Russell”. That was all she said knowing that when you mentioned that breed of dog most people immediately realized the personality and temperament of them!
“We’ll try not to be too long”, said the agent. “It is raining”. Mary smiled again, “that’s alright. It is a nice warm day and it shouldn’t be too bad.” With that Mary started walking towards the back of the house throwing over her shoulder, “Come on in”.
Mary and Robin left in a hurry but found there walk was so pleasant despite the rain that they slowed down to a relaxed pace. The” look through” by the agent might be very brief and they may be back shortly so Mary and Robin meandered their way down to the park in the drizzle. There was no one there, not surprisingly. This was a good thing because there was also no one their dogs could bark at so it was quite a lovely and quiet walk.
It was over a half hour and they still hadn’t heard anything from the agent and Mary piped up, “Let’s start walking back. We can always stop at Carolynn’s house and wait there if we see the realtor’s vehicle is still at our place.” Robin seemed to like this idea especially the idea of getting some shelter somewhere. It was now getting beyond enjoyable as all four of them looked like drowned rats.
As they walked down their street Mary remarked, “Gee, they are still at the house. Well, I guess we might as well see if Carolynn is home.” Carolynn’s house was just up the side street and they could actually see if the realtor’s car went by from her veranda.
After a rap on her door Carolynn came to the door. “Hi Carolynn, said Mary. Can we sit here on your porch? An agent is showing the house. They have been in there more than a half hour.”
“Oh, said Carolynn excitedly, that is a good thing”.
“That’s for sure”, said Mary. Both knew that the longer an agent and his client were there meant only one thing: they liked the place. The discussion over the house was beginning to turn into idle chatter when they saw the agent’s car go by. At the same time the call came from him that they were finished in the house. He expressed his thanks and remarked how beautifully the house was decorated and how well it “showed”.
Mary smiled a big smile when she got off the phone and shared the news. It was good and encouraging to hear this report. But Mary and Robin were too tired and wet to stay and talk anymore. They hurried home with the dogs where they dried them off, turned off all the lights in the house, and sat down for a quiet evening.
Sunday was more of the same: quiet and restful. Both Mary and Robin were too tired to go to church so they slept in and relaxed. No news came from the agent that day.
Monday morning came around and it was back to work for Robin. On the drive in Mary and Robin prayed as usual. Mary and Robin were down to their last couple of dollars before Tuesday when they could cash Robin’s small check he got for some extra work he did. In Mary’s prayer was the request for some cold hard cash to buy cat food. They were right out of it and with five cats you didn’t want to run out of that!
Robin suggested Mary take the postdated check and deposit it in the bank machine indicating that if probably wouldn’t go through until the next day as it had to go all the way to Toronto to be processed. This was news to Mary who argued she thought they had people working right there all night to process any checks. Mary would have to check this out with the teller at the bank later because they could sure use the money right now.
On her return home Mary sat down and wrote a note to a local pastor she needed to tie up loose ends with. Along with her note she planned to give him a present of one of her paintings on glass. Once the note was finished Mary trudged out to the car with her large piece of artwork with the lighthouse design on it.
When Mary got to the church there wasn’t anyone there so she left her card and gift with two locals who she knew attended that parish. After giving them a hug and kiss she embarked to her friend Barbara’s house to drop off some Christian Cds and books she had saved for her when she cleaned out her office. She was a new Christian and Mary knew Barbara had little in the way of Christian influence in her library.
That visit took a little longer than Mary expected as Barbara wasn’t doing too well. The woman had cancer and some days were like that. You never knew with cancer how you would feel. This was one of those bad days for Barbara. So instead of just dropping off the books Mary stayed and chitchatted with her friend for a while and then went and picked her up three banana nut muffins from Tim Horton’s. It was the only thing Barbara felt like eating. Cancer did that to a person. Mary was grateful she had gone to cheer this woman up as she needed it this day. Later in the afternoon, after Barbara had time to go through the stuff Mary gave her, she phoned Mary back to thank her. It was nice someone appreciated her gifts. Gratitude is so nice, thought Mary.
With that she began to give thanks to God for all the things he had done that day. The first thing was Mary’s gratitude for the news from the teller at the bank. She had said, that yes, they could deposit the money in the machine today and withdraw it also as the Brink truck would take it to Toronto tonight and it wouldn’t be processed until tomorrow, just as Robin had said.
Mary then thanked God that the agent had phoned and said the people who looked at the house on Saturday wanted another viewing! She also praised God for the coffee pot that she got at St. Vincent de Paul. Theirs had broken. When Mary had gone to the second hand shop that day she was delighted to find out that the “miscellaneous” items which included coffee pots were on half price. There was one there that was perfect. Mary ended up paying $2.49 for her little treasure!
Mary’s litany of praise and thanks went on as she viewed her email and saw two individuals were interested in buying her old steam trunk and her old TV set they had sitting around. That meant money in her pocket.
Later that night, after a lengthy return visit by the agent and clients, Mary found herself thanking God as she took the money for the old TV set. The buyer had met Mary at the house despite the agent still being there. Mary had come back to the house early and left Robin walking the dogs. She had told the party interested in the television that she didn’t think it would be much longer than an hour that she would have to wait to get back into the house. She had been wrong. Albeit, though the buyers weren’t gone, they were on their way outside to look at the yard and so Mary was able to take her customer in and sell him the TV.
As Mary went up to bed that night there were many things on her mind but her gratitude to God was most prominent. The last few days had been full and in one incident after another she saw God’s handy work and answers to prayer. Now as she lay down her head for a much needed rest she smiled once more and thanked her God and soon was sound asleep.