You Just Needed To Ask...

Let me make a very long story as short as possible. It's been a bad week and one disaster after another. A guy I used to know called this kind of streak an S.A. week.

It's short for Ssss...omething Avalanche. I think. (Where's one of those stupid smiley faces when you need one?)

If it could go wrong, it has, and by last night about five I'd had my fill. I got really bitter and really sarcastic (even for me) and feeling awfully put upon. It was not unlike the way I felt when I finally graduated and found that the finish line was not where I thought it was. I will write more about this when I continue my History of the Blog series.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about that, but I had decided that it had been a little too depressing on here for a while and I needed to write some funny stuff to keep it balanced. Then the Fed Ex envelope showed up and my week went to Hell. How's that for par for my course?

But I digress.

I was in a pretty bad mood when the Boss and I left to go get the new kitchen faucet. On the way to Home Depot, I told her that I was feeling awfully useless and frustrated and that lately I was back to feeling like the no-legged man in the butt kicking contest. You remember him? The fellow that just lays there getting kicked?

To be honest, the things I was saying were not unlike the way I felt when I was writing "The Rooftop". We had been tasting a lot of bitter and not much sweet. I told the Boss that I knew the Lord shapes his children with a refiners fire, but I was really feeling like I needed a quick dip into the quenching barrel before I melted into the coals. She was feeling the same way.

"It'd be really nice of the Lord to let us know that we weren't gonna be hit by a train at the end of the tunnel", I said.

The Boss agreed.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I asked her sarcastically, "What's your bet on the cheapest? A hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty bucks?"

She smiled at me and told me not to be a jerk.

We got to the plumbing section and after a few minutes of searching the displays, found one that we liked for $78. The Boss had made us $50 by finally finding a buyer for the spare clothes dryer that has been in the garage since Thanksgiving(a blessing that I was not as appreciative of as I should have been). So thirty bucks was about what we were willing to spend. We looked for one on the shelf and....they were out.

I wasn't kidding when I said it had been that kind of week.

The Boss found a similar model, but instead of the brushed nickle finish, it was stainless steel. It was also a hundred bucks.

"Go find a store employee and see if they'll substitute." the Boss said to me. "What's the worst that happens; they tell us no?"

What I was thinking was that with my luck they'd add a twenty dollar "We can't believe the gall of some people" tax. But I figured at worst we'd have to drive across town to get one at the other Home Depot.

"All I can do is ask", I mumbled.

I found a guy, told him we wanted to know if they had any more of the kind we liked and he checked and said they did not. So I asked if he'd be willing to substitute something for the lower price.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked.

"How about this stainless model?" I asked, figuring he was gonna tell me to try the other store.

"Yeah", he said. "I can do that for you."

I was stunned. Just like that.

All the stupidity and bad luck and lousy things that had been happening seemed to drop off my shoulders like a sack of weights.

Now, you may say that I am foolish, but I KNOW that this was a little sign from my Father in Heaven that he is aware of us and our trials and that he wasn't going to let us melt off the refiners tongs.

That single act of kindness by a hardware store employee was so overpowering that all the rage and irritation and bitterness was gone in a matter of seconds. I doubt he knew the effect his kindness would have on me. It was only twenty bucks.

And I can't explain to you why such a simple thing could be so powerful except to say that I fully believe it to be an act of a mindful Father in Heaven. He took time from watching over the universe to touch our hearts.

He answered my prayer for a reminder that His Light at the end of this tunnel is not a train, and He did it in a way that we could not mistake it for anything else.

We remembered that he loves us. And just like the silly little Pillsbury Dough boy ornament at Christmas, it could be dismissed by the world as a coincidence or wishful thinking. But I know better.

And all I had to do was ask.




****Editor's Note
I would be ungrateful in the extreme not to mention that Uncle Jason was here until nearly midnight helping me install the faucet. It became obvious that it was beyond my knowledge of how to do so and he came running at the drop of a phone call. He did it with no advanced notice and asked nothing in return. That made it two in a row for good things that have happened to me this week.

I sense a pattern developing.