An Hour of Refreshing

There are some days when my husband has to work long days, sometimes 13 or 14 hours. He literally returns home exhausted. Yesterday was one of those days.

Of course, these inevitably are the nights that I need him for something incredibly important (well...to me, anyway). As I am folding the last few items in my laundry pile, I spot perhaps the largest roach I have ever seen in my life on top of my dresser.

Normally, I frantically yell for Adam's help, and he heroically appears with a fire extinguisher...ahem...I mean a can of Raid. My small contribution in this process is quite simple. I watch the roach and quietly stalk him on his trail to make sure he doesn't scuttle off.

With Adam busily working miles away, I had to quickly muster up some courage and think fast.

My solution?

I sternly tell the roach out loud, "Don't move. I will be right back." (this roach was so BIG, naturally I assumed it had ears).

I sprint downstairs and return armed with two weapons, a can of Raid and a can of Black Flag. Perhaps I can do some marketing research to determine which one really is more effective. Even more impressively, this roach with ears was also obedient because it was in the exact same spot as it was before.

I scrunch up my face from the sheer disgust of it all and start spraying with all I have. As further evidence that this is not your average Joe-Shmoe-Roach, the instant I raised the can in the air, the roach scampers off into a hiding place unbeknownst to me. I imagine the mama roaches warn their baby roachlets of these foreboding cans through bedtime stories.

After a long fruitless search for this mysterious roach, I decided I would do the next most logical thing--rent our bedroom out to the vanishing vermin and sleep downstairs for the night. Maybe I would strategically leave him a sticky mint on my pillow...

After Adam returned from his marathon day, I informed him of my plan. Not crazy about turning our living room into a camping site, he took over the search as I prepared a last-minute dinner.

He, too, discovered that the roach had vanished into thin air. We decided to lay aside the annoyances of the day, and enjoy our last hour of the night at the dinner table. After scarfing down some pizza, we just sat and talked. Adam shared what God was revealing to him in this spiritual season, and suddenly I just felt renewed both emotionally and spiritually. It was such an indescribably sweet time. As we prayed for each other, it felt like a refreshing rain that erased all the stress of the day. In fact, the last hour made all the other hours in the day worth it. We crashed in bed and fell asleep.  I must have forgotten all about the roach.

"You gave abundant showers, Oh God; you refreshed your weary inheritance." (Psalm 68:9, NIV)

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