Lawrence's Birthday Surprise

We have lived in our townhome for nearly 3 years, and we have never used our deck. It's a really nice deck, too; rather large for a townhome deck. But, we have never been able to afford a grill and furniture for the deck. Occasionally, we've taken out the benches that belong to our dining room table and used them to prop up our feet while we sip on wine and watch the clouds roll by or the stars at night. But, for the most part this wonderful deck of ours has gone unused.

Although the deck has gone unused, it has not gone un-weathered. It was in desperate need of some care this year. So, my husband, who is well intentioned but not as well gifted in the area of home maintenance, sought to care for our deck recently. He managed to power wash the deck and stain it with the input of several friends, their tools and manual help from his dad. He actually did a very nice job!

He finished staining the deck right before he left for Florida for four days on business. Initially, we talked about and attempted to arrange for me to go with him to Florida without the boys. But to make a long story short, a competing desire to become debt free won out. I was most definitely tempted to struggle with our circumstances, but God provided grace in the form of an idea!

We had a friend who recently offered a used grill to us for FREE. AND, our neighbors gave us an old picnic table with benches and four chairs that were well used, weathered and unwanted. Despite our lack of funds to furnish our deck, God provided. It wasn't a nice Weber grill with a side burner or the tile top table from Home Depot that I wanted, but it was something to work with.

Lawrence's birthday is July 17th, and I always have a hard time with gifts for him. He always wants a CD or a book. Since there is always new music coming out and new books being published, he figures this gift will never get old. Music and reading are also two of my husband's favorite pastimes. While he may enjoy receiving a new book and/or CD for his birthday each year, I don't always enjoy giving it to him every year. That's just boring to me. So, every once in a while I try to think of something that will equally bless him but that I also will enjoy giving.

This year it came together for me. I decided to put the deck together while he was away in Florida. I knew he wanted Christmas lights strung around the deck like a friend of ours did. We had the grill from another friend and this old picnic table that I talked about painting. With the help and input of many friends (literally, it took about 12 people to pull off this surprise) I had Christmas lights hung around the deck, the grill cleaned up and brought to our house and the picnic table painted.

Wonderfully, a friend suggested doing the table "Terps" style. Up there with reading and music is Lawrence's alma mater, University of Maryland. He is a huge Terrapin fan! So, after all 12 of my servant friends gave input on this table, I finally decided to paint the table red with a big "M" on the top and little Terrapin mascots on the picnic benches. I did not paint the Terrapins myself lest you think I'm in the least bit gifted. A friend of mine outlined the "M" for me to paint (I can handle paint by number) and she also painted the Terrapins. Here are pictures of the table:

It was a lot of work, a combined effort, and a huge blessing to my husband. What could have been four days of misery waiting for my husband to come home turned into an experience of God's mercy and blessing to me and my family through the willing and gifted hands of many friends. Thank you everyone who helped pull this off!