Mountain range in the living room

Our washing machine quit washing.  The agitator quit agitating, though for 14 years it served us well.  We bought a new machine, and the fix should be simple, right?  But we rarely looked behind the old washer.  If we had, we would’ve seen the corroded water valves at the wall.  All right, point taken, we’ll just buy some new valves.  But wait a minute.  A closer look shows the old valves were soldered.  Soldered?  What?!  Soldering didn’t fit in our definition of simple.  Nevertheless, don’t fret.  Just check YouTube’s supply of fix-it demos, and usually that works.  And thereby we stepped out on our yellow brick road of plumbing repair.  We visited the plumbing aisle at Lowe’s and met a girl who was helpful.  Next trip, we met a guy who offered a slightly different idea on how to install in such a small space.  Lowe’s was out of one part, so we drove by Home Depot to talk to a third person who explained about using compression connectors.  The task at the house fared pretty well actually, except for some tiny leaks that bubbled at the connectors.  We finally opted to shut off the water and try again tomorrow.  By the time I entered the stores the next day, no one had those parts in stock.  Still looking to solve the situation, we wondered if one more turn of the wrench would make those bubbles disappear.  But as the wrench tightened, the copper tube broke and water gushed with full force.  Spewing straight up and arching straight down, that force of water flooded the room.  As fast as I grabbed towels, and as fast as my husband ran to turn off the water main and bring in the wet vac, the water won the battle.  It seeped underneath the wall and into the next room.  And no one enjoys a sloshy carpet, especially at 1 AM.  Seriously, as we assessed our situation, we were thankful the cats didn’t run away when we scrambled to lift the garage door.  Nevertheless we had a big mess, and all I knew was to ask the Lord what to do next.  We moaned to move furniture.  We groaned to lift the wet carpet.  But we lifted as best we could and propped the carpet on sawhorses to blow air underneath to dry.  In the morning, I just stared.  I took a deep breath and reluctantly touched the carpet, only to find water still seeping toward the piano.  The fans underneath had helped, but I needed a better way to separate the carpet pad.  At that point, my brain overwhelmed.  Emotional numbness set in, but I still had the awareness to seek the Lord.  Soon I found myself sitting to play the piano instead of trying to move it.  “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” came to mind, and I sang a heartfelt rendition that freed my ability to think.  What had weakened in me now began to restore.  Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”  Soon the notion came to cut away the carpet pad and take it outside to dry separately.  That heavy carpet rolled back to a point I hadn’t reached before, and I pressed it with my knee in order to sop the innermost spots of water.  I lifted that bulky old carpet to an extent I could lay it up over the sawhorses I had repositioned.  I look back now and contemplate how amazingly the Lord made that happen.  Later some stronger connectors from a plumbing supply store solved our mechanical woes, but it was the Lord rescuing my mental state that saved the day.  He was my refuge, strength and help, just as the Psalm says.  Today I stand so thankful for having experienced the Lord’s rescue.  And humorously, the sawhorses holding the carpet provided our cats their own personal mountain range in the living room, which they quite fondly sat atop all the rest of last week. 

Paper-clipped

People devote themselves to things.  It’s a compliment, usually.  Merriam-Webster defines devotion in terms of loyalty and love.  To devote means to commit in a sincere and serious way.  So it’s curious about these writings we call devotionals.  We buy a book or subscribe to emails, and they’re short and quick.  They have a Bible verse, writer’s comments, and prayer all wrapped up pretty in a 5-minute package.  But what about the other 1,435 minutes in the day?  How devoted are we?  Consider someone devoted to gardening.  He tends his vegetables in all kinds of weather—rain, drought, sunshine, or snow.  Consider the devoted parent who exhausts his energy laughing one day and inevitably grieving the next, yet he perseveres.  How shallow or deep is my devotion?  It's not admirable that I sometimes postpone my time with God.  My brain entertains the thought, “Just 2 more emails and then I’ll pray.”  But when the emails finish, a friend calls to talk, and I find prayer postponing once again.  I hear people say they pray in the car on the way to work.  Praying in the car can be good, but if we postpone prayer in order to be in the car first, the prayer is secondary and not the purest of devotion.  We're paper-clipping God to another task.  If I set aside a morning stroll just to listen and speak with the Lord, that’s different than choosing vigorous exercise and paper-clipping prayer to the back side of my power walk.  In 1 Chronicles 28:9, David tells Solomon, “. . . acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.  If you seek him, he will be found by you . . .”  In my laundry room, I have a box of colored paper clips from a bunco party.  The green, blue, and pink clips create a cute package, and they're much more fun than the plain old silver, yet it's the order of papers to be clipped that's more important.  Will the paper signifying my devotion to the Lord be first?  Will I clip the other sheets behind or in front?  What about you?  How do the papers line up in the 1,440 minutes of your day?