There were some issues with the air conditioning and I finally conceded – I had to go under the house. Now if you remember, I’ve had to deal with a funny little thing called claustrophobia in the past. A phobia is an irrational fear and this one deals with enclosed spaces. By the way, the crawl space under a house counts as an enclosed space!! Over the past couple of years, I’ve been able to deal with it, usually as long as I knew about the situation ahead of time. The other day I felt prepared so under I went. One side of the house is very high and I could sit up under there. No big deal.
When I moved to the other side, however the ground sloped up. I had to crawl to reach the air duct in question and my friendly phobia started kicking in the further I went. I had said a little prayer before I started but as I wiggled into the space between the floor joists it went heavy duty! When I turned on my back to free up my arms to work, I looked up to see the floor only 18 inches above me. Not a lot of space!! I tried some Christian logic. “Okay, this house has been here for almost a hundred years and it hasn’t fallen yet so it’s not going to fall now. On the other hand, if it does choose to fall and pin me under here, I’ll just have to die and then I’ll go be with Jesus so that’s okay, too.” Otherwise, “Help me, Jesus!” became my mantra. As I assessed the situation, I repeated that prayer. As I taped the duct back together, I said that prayer. As I looked at the floor, feeling mere inches from my face, I said that prayer
Now, I don’t mean to sound flippant at all. Praying “Help me, Jesus” really got me through that situation. Prayer is serious business. Too often we take it lightly but the Bible tells us again and again that there is POWER in prayer. Let’s find and use that power to further God’s kingdom in this world – where there’s LOTS of room!
Love ya,
Bret
