Lessons learned from the Fridge

Maggie, Anna, and Lizzie (a.k.a.my work crew) left last night to go to Mom and Dad's in Virginia for the weekend. Anna will be playing 3 piano pieces for Mom's church on Sunday (offertory and prelude). This picture shows Allen and Ruthie, supposedly bored now that their entertainment has gone south.

This past fall has been extremely busy for our family, so yesterday I took my children bowling, and today I am having down time. Real down time! Allen and Ruthie are quietly beading (more on that tomorrow) and I have all music turned off. Even the hum of the food dehydrator (especially the hum of the food dehydrator!) drove me nuts, so I moved it into the mud room and shut the door. You know I need down time when I won't even allow music!

Then I cleaned out the refrigerator. Usually I only have to clean it four times a year and even then, it's not terribly bad. (I do a lot of touch-up cleaning.) But this week someone spilled a jar of pickles that hadn't been closed tightly, and well, you know how bad my reefer was.

So while I was cleaning, I had a lot of time for reflection. To look at the outside of my fridge, it doesn't look too bad (shoulda gotten the smudgeproof stainless!) as you can see here:
Sort of like our lives: we look good on the outside by going to church, dressing modestly, training our children, etc. We can hide a lot of sins by keeping our doors shut!

Well, today I dropped one of the shelves and it broke. But I can still use it, it just lost its "pull out" feature that we never used anyway, and you can't tell that it's broken. That made me think of all the people who are broken on the inside.

But my biggest lesson today came from the pickle juice. The juice spilled from top to bottom, getting on each shelf as it passed to the bottom. Our lives are that way. The things we do affect many other areas of our lives, and also affect other people. I had to pick up each item in the fridge and wipe it clean, just as we have to confess each sin daily and before partaking of the Lord's Supper.


But what a wonderful feeling when every last sin is confessed and your fridge is clean as a whistle!

This isn't the first time that I've learned from my fridge. Our old fridge before this one was a tiny fridge. It reminded me of the government-issue fridge back in Navy housing (but not quite). Anyhow, that fridge had a break in the inside front from where a child had stepped on it to reach the top shelf. I hated that break! All the crumbs seemed to collect there, and it just looked bad!

Well, wouldn't you know that the first week after I got my new fridge, and I dropped a frozen chicken in the exact same place and it was broken the same way?! I had 6 pairs of eyes watching me at that moment, waiting to see what I was gonna do. So I simply said, "Okay, Lord, I'm listening to whatever it is you want to tell me!"

So almost every time I see that break, I ask the Lord if there's anything that He's trying to tell me. Ever hear of a Providential break?

Well, thanks for listening. I'm going to take a long break and try to tackle the range that is just as dirty as the fridge was. Hopefully I won't bore you with any range lessons!

Many blessings ~ Kathie

P.S. ~ In case you wonder why I have a container of Breyer's ice cream in my fridge section, I was given the nice container to keep my freshly ground wheat in!