Trouble Oh, trouble, set me free I have seen your face And it's too much, too much for me....

There was a point when I could have left and it probably would have made a bigger difference. it was back when we'd been in the church a couple years, I guess.

My husband is a contractor. He's been one for all of our marriage. He is basically Macgyver with a nail gun.

Well there was a fellow member of our church that had a commercial building he had run into trouble with. It was pretty rough and he was trying to get it remodeled and was acting as his own general and was finding out he was over his head. He had walls ending in the middle of the windows, the window contractor wasn't showing up. My husband was excited to take the job. It was in our own town, not far from our house and he was excited to get it looking nice. Our town is kind of one of those places that has lots of potential, but is a little rough around some of the edges, and he saw it as a chance to make things nicer close to home.

My husband isn't a belly scratching, plumber pants crack sort of a contractor. He's worked on beautiful houses and businesses around the Portland area. He cares about quality and ascetics. He won't work for new construction contractors because they want things done quick and cheap. He won't work for home owners that want things done cheap. He has been a contractor in the Portland metro area for over 25 years and he has never had to pay for advertising Except for during the economic crash  he usually has a waiting list. People refer him. They trust him with keys to their houses. They've given us access to their vacations homes. He's trusted. He cares about beauty. He won't drink cheap beer or eat at McDonalds and he likes expensive cheese. He's THAT kind of contractor.

Well, like I said, he wanted to make it nice. There was a bit of opposition because the owner had made himself contentious with his neighbors (should have taken a greater notice of that.) and there was a historical society, neighborhood coalition besides the regular code enforcement and city planners to work with. So it was tricky. But he was sure we could make something good out of it.

My husband used to get this real boyish gleam in his eyes when he was excited about something.

Well, the work went on. He worked all summer. He would drive the family by to look at the progress. Things seemed fine.... then the owner started getting backed up in his payments. He stopped talking to my husband. Stopped returning calls. They were working on the finishing up, trying to get occupancy. It was starting to get stressful.

Then one day our pastor told my husband that trouble was coming his way.

Trouble.