I prayed.
WonderBoy is a sculptor. He uses polymer clay to make tiny figures, and he uses those figures to make dioramas so he can take pictures that he turns into slideshows and films. Sometimes he just uses them to create another world where he works things out or simply finds adventure.
That box held some of his favorite adventure figures, and I was sure it had somehow ventured into a trashcan. Still, I prayed.
What else do you do when something is hopeless besides pray?
I have prayed a lot for that box, for us to find it, and all the looking still didn't find it.
A few months ago my fridge started making puddles on the floor. It was leaking into the bottom freezer and seeping onto the floor. I finally broke down and asked someone for some help. He told me to turn off the water to see if it was possibly the water dispenser or the ice maker, so I did. It still leaked. So I turned the water back on, and the ice maker no longer worked.
After trying everything I knew, I finally apologized to my checking account and called the manufacturer. Of course it is no longer under warranty. Missed that by six months, but they would cover the cost of the part, and I only had to pay the $120 in labor. When I mentioned the ice maker, I was advised to simply buy an extended warranty for a year for $367 because both repairs would exceed that. I nearly choked. I was almost buying a new refrigerator just to fix my "just not new enough" one.
The nice lady at the manufacturing company suggested trying to reboot the ice maker. Just turn it off, leave it off an hour, and turn it back on. Worth a try. So I did. And when I turned it back on, the water dispenser had stopped working, too.
You ever had one of those why-do-I-bother? moments? It was one of those with a side order of just-shoot-me-now.
I tried everything. I thought maybe the hoses were frozen, so I unplugged the fridge overnight to let them thaw. Nothing. I turned the water off and rebooted the ice maker again. Nothing. I made sure the water was on. A trickle came out of the water dispenser and stopped. I tried rebooting everything since I knew the water was on. Nothing. Reset the water filter. Nothing. Changed the water filter. Nothing. Every combination of on and off for all the pertinent water and power sources was tried. Nothing.
When I went to bed last night, I just prayed, "Lord, we can use ice trays, but we use the water dispenser a lot. If you could just make that work again, it would be nice." And I wrote on my to do list the need to call and schedule the repairs.
4:01 a.m.
The red numbers were bright in my dark bedroom, and the voice was loud. "I wonder if the water is even on."
It was a stupid thought. I knew the water was on. That is why it would trickle and quit. When I turned the water off, there was no water at all. Of course the water was on.
So I rolled over and pulled my blanket up around my chin.
"What if the water isn't on?"
But it is.
"Is it that hard a thing to check? I mean, getting up, walking to the kitchen, and checking a valve versus a few hundred dollars in repairs. Doesn't it make sense to at least check?"
So I tossed off the covers, walked to the kitchen, reached behind the fridge, and felt the valve. Just like I thought. In the "on" position, but for reasons not of my mind, I twisted to see if I could turn it some more. It turned. Not even a quarter of a turn, but it turned, and I heard water hum through the tubes.
When I put a glass under the dispenser and pushed, water flowed freely.
And all I could do was laugh and say, "Thank you," and wonder at the goodness of my Daddy.
With gratitude for the answer to prayer, I headed back to bed.
Couldn't sleep. My brain was busy thinking about how God answers the craziest impossible-because-I've-tried-everything-I-know-and-if-you-don't-do-something-it-is-hopeless prayers.
So I decided to journal, except I couldn't find my pen, so I pulled out my side table drawer and rummaged for a pen, and in the rummaging, there sat an Altoid box. I stopped.
It's that moment when that crazy prayer has been answered but you are afraid to touch it because it might not have been, and I mean why in the world would that box be in my side table, except there was a box in my side table...and why would we ever look here....
And do you open the box because it probably isn't THE box because if it is....well, must how crazy would that be anyway?
Crazy.
The kind of crazy that only happens at 4:27 a.m. after a dead refrigerator water dispenser is restored to life. That is when the craziness of a lost Olimar and his Pikmin sheep being found happens.
Crazy, I tell you.
The no-way-in-the-world-that-will-happen-so-it-must-be-God kind of crazy. And that kind of crazy is a total gift.
Copyright 2014 Jerri Kelley Phillips
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