When a liability is actually an investment

And God's graciousness with a ticking time-bomb

November 2023

Bob pushed Okasan’s buttons. It started out as teasing. It quickly escalated to bullying. I had to step-in. Again. I managed to keep Bob in his room, but it wasn’t long before he and Missy started fighting. They shared a bedroom, so there was nowhere to separate them… Missy desperately wanted her own space, but there was nowhere to go.

My brother in-law, Masato, came home and I witnessed, as I did most nights, his demands, and Okasan’s doting. It’s Japanese culture to wait upon the husband. Her husband was now gone. Was that why she carried out Masato’s every beck and call? It was not my culture, so I fought inwardly to not let it bother me. I lost the battle. Again.

Squashed into our house-built-for-two, with all the different dynamics going between the six of us, I really felt like my own space at times... Sigh. Then I would think about the reality of living between two houses and wondered if it would end up being worse...??? And how long would we be able to live in our own house anyway? Would we need to move back soon if Okasan started to go down hill... Argh! I tried to pray, trust, and wait. Wait upon the Lord.

While we were in the Land of Waiting regarding the Prayer House, there was progress of sorts. Firstly, we finally found out that we couldn’t buy the house next door. (Is that progress?? Not really I guess!) This was the house I had first dreamed about moving into. The man who owned the house wasn’t willing to sell it whilst his mother was still alive. She came back to visit the house from time to time as it was the final home that her and her now-deceased husband lived in, and it held many happy memories for her.

So the house next door was off the dream list. I certainly didn't want to wish or pray for the dear old lady’s life to end!

Now our eyes, hopes and dreams were really set on the Prayer House. God must have been teaching me patience, as we had to wait til after Christmas (but in reality, it’s going to be after New Years, right?) to have a meeting and find out if the Baptist Church were willing to give it to us.

Secondly, as we sat in the Land of Waiting, it gave many hours of opportunity to have mind wrestles! Learning that the Prayer House would be a liability was a real hard pill for me to swallow. Was it worth putting in all our savings, into a house that wasn’t gong to be an asset? That if we sold, we’d never get the money back? (Unless the market did a drastic change, which would have to be a major miracle and huge cultural shift for the entire country of Japan which has been urbanizing for the last 50 or more years and now has over 90% of the population living in a city!)

Then there was also the question of, How long would we be living in Japan? What if we chose to go back to Australia in a few years? We’d have emptied our wallets into the Prayer House Black Hole, never to pull the funds back out again. If we returned to Australia, we’d be starting from scratch. And considering the real estate market in Australia, and our age, that’s kinda scary.

But of course there’s also the possibility of us living here for the next 20 years or more. Maybe never moving back to Australia. If we were going to be staying in Japan, I would definitely want my own space!! My own house. I want the kids to have their own bedrooms! Missy desperately wants her own space. Even though I’m coping with my walk-in-robe size bedroom, I would personally love a bedroom that was big enough for a double bed, and even more, one that was actually private!

I’d also love a living room big enough to put a table with chairs so I didn’t have to be bending down all the time and sitting on the floor! And not just that, but a living room big enough so we could invite friends and family over, more than just 2 people at a time! And even more than all these reasons, when it came down to the crunch, what I really wanted was a house with enough space for Bob and Okasan to both be in, but not be killing each other! (And the kids to have their own rooms!)

And that’s just it. When we considered the needs of our family, and what would work well for us, I started to realise that putting money into the Prayer House wouldn’t be a liability at all, it would actually be an investment. Not a financial investment, but an investment into the health and well-being of our family.

So, with the willingness to part with the money for the sake of the family, we now sat in wait, praying and trusting that if the Prayer House was meant to be our’s, God would make it happen.

We were in the Land of Waiting for the Prayer House, and dad was also in the Land of Waiting. Siting in hospital, literally a heart-attack-waiting-to-happen, he waited for the availability to have triple bypass surgery.

Not liking hospital gowns, dad chose to wear his own clothes. After a few days of being in hospital, confined to the bed, he eventually got permission to walk to the toilet himself, (instead of being pushed there in a wheelchair) and was allowed to shower every day (instead of once a week) and was even allowed to walk and leave his room.

Slowly but surely, restrictions that had been placed upon him got lifted. He was put on a fat-free, salt-free diet but they even lifted that as well! He was glad to be having full cream milk! (I’m not so certain that hot chocolates with full cream milk were such a good idea for people with three blocked arteries…!) So dad really started stretching his wings and eventually he was hanging out around the ward, at the hospital cafe and all manner of places that weren’t his bed! And, being in his own clothes, most people didn’t even realise he was a patient, haha!!

Friends stopped by to visit (Thank you! You know who you are, I’m so very grateful for you) and dad kept up his positive spirit. Dad had all sorts of wires and whatnot attached to him, under his clothes. With the modern technology, it was all connected to a small device that he clipped on his belt. He was under constant monitoring but remotely, making it possible to be mobile.

Then the morning came. Everything went black. The beeps, the lines, the colours, all gone. The nurses acted quickly, rushing to his room. But dad’s bed was empty. They phoned his mobile.

“Hello, Doug speaking,” came his reply.

“Are you OK?” asked the anxious nurse.

“I’m excellent!” came dad’s standard, positive response.

Turns out, he wandered just a little too far from his room and his remote monitoring device lost signal. HAHAHA!!!

It was a fun story for dad to share, and nice to laugh, but sometimes I would get anxious about the wait, thinking that dad was a ticking time bomb. How long could one survive in his condition??! (On hot chocolates??!!) But I had to keep trusting God and His timing.

As I sat on the toilet one day, the graveness and severity of dad’s situation weighed heavy on me. Dad was in hospital. He needed triple bypass surgery. It had been such a shock to us all and I’d been up and down, feeling very emotional about the whole thing. And here I was back in a slump, and once again crying out to God. I couldn’t even string words together, only my heart cried out.

As I sat there, bearing the weight of concern, God lifted my chin and cast my eyes across the room. There, sitting on the other side, was a white gift bag with pink flowers painted on it. As I stared mindlessly at the top flower, it suddenly no longer looked like a flower. There, I saw me, sitting with my knees up and head bent, and encompassing me in a hug, was God. And then I noticed the words in the centre of the circle: GRACIOUS.

Gracious.

In that moment I believed that God would be gracious. I felt the hug, believed the message. I stood, the weight gone.

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