Of Mice and Men and Skunks and Such

"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11)

When Tim & I were a whopping one month into our marriage, we bought our first house. It seemed like such a great opportunity, but we learned the hard way why many wise advisors caution couples against buying a house early in marriage. 

The house was built in the 1920’s. It had a dirt basement. It sat in a mostly peaceful but not so up-and-coming part of our city. But the worst part of all:  It had a dirt basement. Yes, I know I said that already. But that’s important to remember.

My Dad, who in addition to being a pastor is one of the finest contractors on the planet, had renovated the entire living space for this house.  The main floor and upper half-story were completely transformed and had a charming mix of new-meets-quaintly old.  We thought it would be a great starter house until we started having kids.

I never even knew what a dirt basement was until this house.  Basically, it’s an oversized crawlspace that you can access from the inside of the house.  We had a basement door with steps leading down into this pit of dirt, whose only functions besides disgusting me (I never once stepped foot in that basement the entire 5 years we lived there) were to house the furnace and water heater, to provide some limited storage, and to allow access to unwanted water leaks and… rodents.

That’s right.  Rodents.

The first year or two that we lived there, we didn’t have any problems that we knew of.  So as we approached the birth of our first child, we made the decision to do a few more improvements to the house and stay put a little while longer.  We got the baby’s room ready, as cute as could be, and we brought our new baby home. 

It was the following Spring when things took a turn for the worse.  We went on a trip to visit Tim’s family for a week, and when we came back, our house was infested with mice.

Our dogs (Yorkshire terriers, which are internally wired for catching rodents) had been going nuts around the floor vents in the house, scratching under the dishwasher, behind the washing machine…  Then it happened.  We were sitting in the living room watching TV one evening, and I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.  I looked across the room just in time to see a mouse running up the stairs… to my baby’s room.

I freaked out.

We packed suitcases and went to stay with my parents for the next week and a half or so while Tim set out traps to catch them.  It was horrific.

I remember the first day of attempted mouse-catching.  Tim had set two traps downstairs.  He went home on his lunch break to check the traps and called me with the report.  I eagerly yet disgustedly asked, “Did we catch any?”  “Yep.”  “How many?”  He said, “You’re not ready for this.  With two traps, we caught three mice.”  Gross!  “How in the world?!”  Both traps caught a mouse each, and the third mouse had fallen in our dogs’ water bowl.

 Yuck.  I know.  Trust me, you don’t have to tell me that.

During those two weeks, we -- and by “we,” I mean Tim, because I absolutely was not going near them -- caught 14 mice before we felt the coast was clear for us to clean house and move back in.

Thus began a streak of rodent issues.

One morning, I went downstairs to the kitchen and found a partially-eaten tomato sitting next to the stove.  We quickly realized we had a rat.  It turns out the rat had made its home in the back of our oven.  Tim caught it, but not before it had completely ruined our oven by eliminating on the insulation.  That oven became scrap metal for some kind soul who came and hauled it away for me.

We had exterior issues with groundhogs and possums under our shed.  Those were more of a nuisance than anything, although they did pose a threat to our two tiny dogs, especially the night that a possum bit my dog, Nicholas, on the nose. 

We often joked (in a cynical, non-funny way) about charging admission to the “zoo” that we apparently owned right in the middle of Roanoke City.

Then came the skunks.  I always thought skunks were pretty little boogers… The stark black and white markings.  And who doesn’t love Pepe le Pew? 

I don’t.  Not anymore.

When our son was just 6 weeks old and I was still on maternity leave with him, a skunk moved in under our house. 

And it sprayed. 

We were forced to move in with my parents, this time as a family of four, while we aired out the house for a few days and tried to catch the skunk.  The smell was so bad that a professional serviceman said it was the worst case of skunk spray in a house that he had ever witnessed.  It permeated the whole house, including our furniture, our clothes, our curtains… everything.  Days later, we would go to church, and people would smell skunk on us and our children.

We hired a wildlife company to catch the skunk, which they did.  And then another one moved in.  Despite our efforts, we never caught that one, but it never sprayed, either.  However, there was always this lingering “twinge” of a smell when you walked in our house.

This past winter, we had a really bad case of deja-vu.  We suspected we might have a mouse issue again, because of how the dog was acting.  Then, as I was talking on the phone one late afternoon while working on my home computer, I saw a mouse run up those same stairs to my little girl’s room.

I really, really freaked out.  I was at the end of my emotional rope with this house.

And for the third time, we moved out of that house.  This time, we never moved back. 

That happened on a Friday evening.  The next Wednesday, we had signed a lease and were moving into a brand new, never-lived-in-before townhouse.  We felt like we’d just moved to Beverly Hills!

***

You know, there are a lot of life lessons to take away from these stories, besides the obvious.  And I hope these are lessons that will encourage and challenge you in whatever you’re facing today…
 

Lesson 1:  Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.  Appearances can be oh, so wrong.  This little house had all the makings of a cute, perfect house for starting a family.  But under the surface lay a dark secret that no matter how much we ignored, would always be there, always causing problems. 

What secrets are you hiding today, hoping that if you ignore them long enough, they’ll just go away? 

I urge you, please deal with them.  If you need a church to help you, I know a great one I can recommend.  Find a prayer partner, a small group leader, someone who can talk with you and pray with you to face and deal with whatever it is that’s been taunting you.  A childhood marred by abuse.  An unfaithful spouse.  A hidden sin.  An unconquerable addiction.  Whatever it is, hiding it is not worth the cost to you.  The cost is your freedom.  Your freedom in God, your freedom in relationships, your freedom in your calling in life.

I learned the hard way that ignoring a dirt basement and pretending it’s not there does not relinquish you from the reality that it’s still… always… there.  Neither does it relinquish you from the fear that just when you have things going pretty perfectly, it will allow some intrusion into your private, personal life that can turn things totally upside down.

I beg you.  Find a solid leader in a life-giving church or a Christian counselor, and start dealing with your dirt basement.

Lesson 2:  Our issues affect other people.  When that skunk sprayed our house, we had done nothing to deserve it.  (We had also done nothing to prevent it, apparently, but that’s another issue).  We didn’t invite the skunk in.  But when it moved in, invited or not, its issues became our issues.  The skunk wasn’t the one who had to walk into church embarrassed because other people could smell it.  The skunk didn’t get kicked out of its home for 10 days because it couldn’t tolerate its smell.  We were the beneficiaries of the skunk’s issues.

Maybe you have been the beneficiary of someone else’s “stuff.”  Maybe your dad’s addiction caused you to live your life embarrassed, always apologizing for his behavior.  Maybe your mom’s perpetual, lifelong manipulation has affected your own relationships with your kids.  Maybe you have your own issues that you know are affecting your spouse, your kids, your parents, your co-workers…  Whatever it is, the solution is not to feel sorry for yourself, nor is it to ignore the issue.  You have to deal with it, in whatever way will bring about good for you, your family, and your relationships. 

This is not something to be done hastily or without prayer.  A couple of guys offered to rip up the floor of our laundry room, find the skunk under there, and shoot it.  I didn’t take them up on their offer.  Besides the fact that discharging a firearm in Roanoke City is not exactly legal, I also know that the best way to deal with a skunk is not to rush up on it and catch it by surprise.  Some issues take careful thought, solid counsel from a spiritual authority in your life, and very delicate care.  But they do have to be dealt with.

Lesson 3:  God still does “suddenlies.”  We were in that house much longer than we planned to be, and that happens a lot in life.  It especially happens when sin is involved, both with our own sin and with the sin of others that affects us.

In the case of sin, there’s a saying that says, “Sin will take you farther than you intended to go; it will cost you more than you intended to pay; it will keep you longer than intended to stay.”

For the greater part of the five years that we lived in that house, I longed for a place that didn’t have those issues.  On January 28, I felt trapped, victim to all of the house’s issues.  I had absolutely no idea that within one week – just 7 days from then – I would be living in a brand new home, free from rodents and skunks and groundhogs and possums.  While this is not our permanent dwelling place by any means, we saw just how quickly things can turn around.

There have been times that my issues seemed insurmountable.  I felt so overcome by my own sin, by my own failures, by fragmented relationships, that I saw no way out.  But I’ve learned that God can and often does change things in an instant.

Sometimes all it takes is one phone call to that person, one kind gesture, one act of understanding to turn a whole relationship around.

Sometimes all it takes is one Scripture verse strategically placed in your path for a river of peace to break through the stress of your week.

Sometimes all it takes is one prayer, one desperate plea to God, for the provision you need to make it another day, another week, another month.

Sometimes all it takes is a few minutes in God’s Presence – worshiping Him and surrendering all to Him – for the oppression and depression that have been weighing down so heavily on you to be shattered by fullness of hope and joy.

Whatever looks impossible in your life today, please know that there is hope – hope in a God who still performs “suddenlies.”

Whether you can see it or not, God still has a plan for you.  He still holds your future.  And He can guide you above and beyond the insurmountable obstacles you’re facing, into those plans “to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”