Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed. Most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old time rail journey–delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.
So that's the ticket to life - gratitude. When we are grateful then what we have is enough and we can see the silver lining around the clouds of smoke, dust, and inevitable storms. This past month has been a little stormy, but at the same time our little family has been blessed in some miraculous ways.
The Saga of the Fridge
I've been meaning to record this ongoing saga surrounding our fridge and freezer, because it perfectly illustrates how the Lord provides all the things we stand in need and IN THE RIGHT TIME! I am learning to have faith in the Lord, and more importantly have faith in the Lord's TIMING. And the saga of the fridge has been the perfect lesson. So let me explain...We are currently living in a cute 3 bedroom, 2 bath rental house, and have been here for just over 2 years. The house came with a washer, dish washer, new oven/stove, and a fridge. According to our lease, the property owner is not responsible for replacing any of the appliances should they break. We had to buy a dryer right away and then about 2 months after we moved in we had to by a washing machine. Our dishwasher is adequate, but the fridge was limping along from the very beginning. It was one of those awful side-by-side so the storage capacity of the freezer was absolutely pathetic. We could get one bag of Costco frozen chicken, a 10lb bag of ice, and a few bags of frozen veges in there, but that was it. It would drive us nuts, especially during the summer when we wanted to have extra ice on hand - no room.
About a year into our life here, the fridge started leaking water out of the bottom corner by the freezer. Didn't know what was going on, didn't have the money to buy a new one, so we folded up a towel and left it on the floor to soak up the water. The leaking would last for about 3-4 days, then it would stop.
At this same time we were having problems with the electricity throughout the house -- we joked that either we had a poltergeist or the wiring for the whole house was shot. I would plug in an iron in the second bedroom to do some ironing and all the lights in the house would flicker on and off each time the iron clicked on. The flickering just seemed to gradually get worse. Whenever the dry or washing machine was going all the lights would flicker and heaven forbid I blow dried my hair - it was like I was at a disco-tech. Our local property manager/maintenance man would come over and mess around with the electrical panel and tell us we had too many things plugged in, but nothing would change.
Anywho, a few months ago, we had just about had it, and I was worried that if it was an electrical problem we could be in danger of a fire (we do have renters insurance, but who really wants to deal with loosing everything in a fire). We asked the local property manager to come out again and double check. After investigating again, he said that perhaps it was a larger problem that started outside in the power actually coming into our house. After a call to SRP, the mystery was solved -- the problem actually was in the power line coming in to our house which was so old it had become corrupted. SRP came out (at 11:00pm) and spent the whole night digging out our old line and putting in a new one, while we blissfully slept through it. And sure enough that solved all of our disco-tech problems, and that was silver lining #1.
Now back to our leaky fridge and pathetic freezer space. About a month after our power problems were resolved, Chris was at a Cincinnati Reds spring training game (don't worry this is all connected). Chris is one of the luckiest people you will ever meet - he wins a lot of things in drawing, etc. One of the sponsors at this particular game was a fridge/freezer appliance shop. This picked Chris at random and he "won" a mini-fridge. Then they said that if the pitcher pitched a no-hitter that inning he would also win a kegerator. Sure enough the pitcher threw a no-hitter.
A few days later, Chris is at their warehouse checking out the items he won. After telling them that we couldn't use a kegerator, he asked if they had any chest freezer. We had been dreaming about getting a chest freezer to combat our pathetic freezer problems. They were more than happy to give us a small chest freezer along with our mini-fridge instead of the very expensive kegerator. Chris loaded them up and set them up with joy and gladness - silver lining #2.
This last silver lining #2 could only have been possible with a properly functioning power supply to our house. Could you imagine the pyrotechnics which would have happened had we plugged in a chest freezer and a mini-fridge to our already malfunctioning power supply? We would have definitely had reason to be concerned for our safety. In this the TIMING of the Lord was perfect. We could not have had the freezer & mini-fridge until our power issues were resolved!
On to the next silver-lined cloud. At the end of April, beginning of May, our piteous refrigerator called it quits! Fortunately we caught it soon after it gave up the ghost so we were able to salvage the food items from within and SILVER LINING #3 -- we had a mini-fridge for the fridge items, and a great big chest freezer to save the meager amount of frozen goods which were still in the fridge/freezer. We were so blessed to have the small fridge and freezer in place ready to save us from this new challenge.
Can you see how the Lord's TIMING is perfect?!
With the back up system in place we were able to mitigate the loss of our food, and get a replacement fridge in place - this one had a much bigger freezer space.
My faith in the Lord and His perfect timing has helped change my perspective of the trials I currently find myself facing. I am humbly grateful for a Savior who knows what I need and when I need it. In the end, we have a new-to-us larger capacity fridge, a cute mini-fridge for our drinks, and a fabulous new chest freezer (which easily fits a 20lb bag of ice).
