28 Jan Creaky Floors by Dottie Coffman
In late summer of 2014 my husband and I bought this house in Walton County, GA. This is the first house we have owned in several years. Why God led us to a house with steps (it is a split foyer) I am not quite sure. Except for the fact that although I may struggle with the stairs, it is a good form of exercise.
One thing we quickly noticed was that the floors on the top floor creaked. Anyone staying in our guest room downstairs can hear walking back and forth. Even from the garage, footsteps can be heard back and forth down the top floor hall.
Our daughter and grandson stay downstairs frequently and she commented that she can tell everything we do upstairs by listening to the creaking floors. At first thought, the idea of having creaking floors was irritating. I mean one cannot move from one room to the other, the kitchen to the bathroom, the bedroom to the office, without alerting others in the house that you are on the move. Even the 40 pound border collie makes the floor creak as he sneaks down the hallway to the area of the bedrooms where he is NOT supposed to be.
Irritating, and yet, the other side of this coin is that the creaky floors act also as an interior alarm. No one is able to sneak anywhere upstairs without alerting the others in the house. The dog cannot sneak by. A prospective burglar cannot sneak in. Our grandson cannot maneuver unnoticed to places in the house he shouldn’t be.
Well, well, well. That gives one a new perspective of this creaky floor business. If you are a glass half empty person, you will grumble about the situation. If you are a glass half full person, you just may rejoice in the positives of a built-in alarm system.
We have a traditional alarm system that alerts us if someone comes in the doors uninvited. Also alerts us if my grandson should try to get out the door and escape. But if I am here by myself, say, in my office like I am now, and I hear creaking, I am alerted to either the dog coming down the hall, or one of my dearly departed relatives paying me a visit—-a highly unlikely scenario I think—- or an uninvited guest that I need to check out right away. In any case, it prompts me up out of my office chair to march down the hall to investigate.
I can’t help but consider this as a comparison to some ways of the Lord. Sometimes we see things in a negative way but when we consider the facts from the Lord’s perspective, we may find that what we see as a negative may be a negative to steer us to a positive for our own good. A job opportunity that passed us by, a so-called friend who doesn’t call anymore, a car that was sold out from under us before we could be approved, a house bought by someone else before we could sign on the dotted line. Many negatives by human eyes.But probably positives because God is protecting us from ourselves and from others who may harm us.
Next time you find yourself feeling bad, rejected, hurt, frustrated about a decision that seemed out of your control, try to look at the situation through God’s eyes. I will bet you will see those creaky floors as a blessing from God instead.
Dorothy (Dottie) Coffman was born in Washington, DC and raised in Northern Virginia. She married her high school sweetheart, Ken, and after some very dramatic years, they now live in Monroe, Georgia. They have four children: daughter Julie with grandson Noah; Brad (Rhonda) with granddaughter Alexis and grandson Tyler; twin sons Nick (Jen) and Matt (Amy).
Dottie has been involved in many things including: sports, drama and music, radio talk show host and station manager, writing, photojournalism, Bible teacher, public relations, community relations, and more. Being a professional interviewer, a radio personality, and now a writer, Dottie finds that real life is the best subject of all.
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