Back Door Blessings, a Lemonade Moment

When Rob was on his mission we got really tired of hearing everyone talk about how they were being blessed while having a missionary in the field.  We seemed to have nothing but bad luck! Huge car repairs, house and car egged, water in one of our gas tanks, slashed tire another night, house repairs, fire in our clothes dryer  . . . . there just seemed no end to it!  One day when the bishop asked if we were enjoying the blessings of having missionary out, I had kind of lost it and told him, "If we get blessed much more we'll be homeless by the time Rob gets home".  When I said this, the poor bishop looked so funny and asked what I meant, so I told him about all of our adventures.  Poor guy didn't seem to know quite what to say.

One day I was sitting in the foyer after church waiting for Jon, feeling sorry for myself and feeling just a little picked on.  In my heart I had a talk with the Heavenly Father and told

Him that I didn't care if we didn't "prosper" but could we just hold the status quo.  I had the most wonderful peaceful feeling come over me and I understood that we would always have what we needed. We would never have a lot of worldly wealth, and it was for my good.   

On the way home I told Jon I had bad news, good news and bad news.  Poor guy could hardly drive straight down the road as he gritted his teeth and asked, " Now what?".  So I told him the bad news is that we would never have two extra dimes to rub together, the good news was that we would have enough for our needs.  He sat there so stiff and asked what the other bad news was.  I told him that it was because of me and he was stuck for eternity!!!! =-)

It was after that I decided that we were being blessed, just through the back door.  Only one tire was slashed, only one tank got water, the egg washed off pretty easily, the fire stayed inside of the dryer, we never got more than one month behind, OK, two months and we did get letters concerning the little problem, but the car problems slowed down and that helped us get them caught up. I lived close to work so when the cars were breaking down faster than we could fix them, I could find someone who could swing by and pick me up.

Yesterday, when I drove the truck over to the Maskey's I made a scary discovery.  The back tire had tread peeling with the steel belt showing.  We had no idea.  The last time we drove it was on the freeway going 70 or 75 out to the dump.  I felt a rush of gratitude that we hadn't had it fail that day.  I was driving and haven't had to deal with a blowout for years.  I was very tired and might not have dealt with it very well.

But it has reminded me that those backdoor blessings can be pretty good.  We all seem to have cars going belly up.  By living so close, we can swap cars around as needed and get where we need to be.  If Gabe makes good choices after preschool, he can just be dropped off to come keep Nanny company, really, he's pretty good at this!

This morning when Jon was rushing around to get off to work, he remembered the truck tire and came in looking kind of guilty.  He fessed up that he had not gotten the tire changed, he could go on out and do it real quick if I needed to go anywhere ..... blah, blah, blah.   Could I live with being grounded for a day.   

I had to laugh when I pointed to the calendar and told him I was already in the middle of making English muffins, biscuits for posting, laundry, started the hall closet reorganization so that  I could clear my counters . . . completely, and hopefully finish purging our bathroom closet so that I could enjoy having a fairly big bathroom again!   Which would help me finish putting our bedroom together, finally . . .  OK, Let me dream!  I'm working off a list!