Heavenly Homemakers

Remember back in mid-June when we opened our Shaved Ice trailer? It’s been going well, and although cars and people haven’t been lining up for miles to buy shaved ice…business has been decent and all of our customers have enjoyed the shaved ice.

Then last week the city began doing road construction right in our area, making it very difficult for people to see our little business. For a couple of days, they blocked off one of the streets that gave people access into our lot. And then, to make matters worse…they began parking their big, huge equipment in our lot. Our lot. The one we are paying rent on.

We got very little business last week…and knew that this road construction would not be ending any time soon. Obviously, we were getting quite discouraged.

We spent a lot of time in prayer over the situation. Did God not want us to pursue this business after all? Was this not something we should be spending our time on? We’ve spent lots of time and a fair amount of money on our new venture…was it going to be all for nothing?

Did I mention we spent a lot of time in prayer?

We recalled that a few weeks back, some friends of ours had called and asked how things were going. They own a business right downtown and told us that if we ever needed to use their lot to park our trailer on and sell our shaved ice…they would be happy to share it with us. At the time they called…we appreciated their offer, but told them that we had already signed a lease and were paying rent for the other lot. 

Now, we decided that even though we were already paying rent on another lot…we really should take our friends up on their offer and move to their lot. At least people would be able to see us there, instead of only seeing big piles of dirt and gravel and huge machines.

And then guess what?! The very day we made the decision to move, the guy in charge of the construction project approached Matt and said, “If I pay for half of your rent, can I use half of your lot?” (Hey, if they were going to use it anyway…it was nice of him to offer to pay us for it.)  Then Matt said, “That would be fine…but would you rather have the whole lot?” And the guy said, “That would be great.” 

Soooooo, now we are in a lot that is open and does not have huge machinery blocking the way….AND our rent for the original lot is being paid for by the construction workers who are using it. What a huge financial relief (because we thought we’d need to move, but still pay the lease on the lot we weren’t using anymore…). AND how blessed we are to have friends who were pulling for us and willing to help us out by letting us use their lot. You’d better believe…they’ll get all the free shaved ice they want! (That’s a hint, Tanya…bring the kids on over!)

Again God has proven to us that He always works everything out. Always. :)

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How is God working in YOUR life? Blog about it, and come on over and link up with us!

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Pardon me for being a teeny bit materialistic this week, but I really must take time this Gratituesday to appreciate my dishwasher. 

It’s just that I didn’t realize how much I appreciated my dishwasher until I was so sick for several days. At one point when I had about two minutes worth of energy, I took the opportunity to load a few dishes into the dishwasher. At that moment, I was so grateful to have a dishwasher, I thought I might weep. How wonderfully nice to have a piece of machinery in my kitchen that is happy to be overloaded with as many dirty dishes as I can fit into it…and then with the push of a button it will make my dishes all sparkly and ready to eat on again.

I suppose that I certainly can’t be grateful for my dishwasher without first and foremost being grateful for my father-in-law, who bought it for me. 

For all of our married life I was used to not having a dishwasher. When we moved into this house six years ago, the house came with a dishwasher. Hooray. I didn’t care that it was 436 years old. It was a dishwasher. 

And then about a year after we moved in, the dishwasher stopped working. I was bummed, but not bummed enough to do anything about it. In my mind, a dishwasher is a luxury, not a necessity. We didn’t have the money to replace it, and I knew that I could certainly wash my mountains of dishes by hand.

And so I did. For two more years.

Then Matt’s dad came for a visit. While he was here, we fed him well….and he fixed some odds and ends around the house. It was great. He noticed that I wasn’t using my dishwasher and asked me about it. I told him that it had broken quite a while back and that if he wanted to look at it and see if he could fix it while he was puttering around fixing things that it would be fine with me. If he couldn’t fix it, I was okay with that too.

He looked at it and saw that it wasn’t fixable. The very next night after dinner, he took us all to an appliance store to pick out a new dishwasher. Wow. I was not expecting that. 

So now I have a dishwasher. And it works. Very well. I don’t even have to rinse the dishes much before I load them to be washed. It’s awesome.

My father-in-law’s goal was to make my work load lighter. He knew that it would help me, and that the boys would be able to help load and unload it too, which would make my work load lighter yet. And he was right.

And so, as I was standing in my kitchen loading my dishwasher last week with my tiny bit of strength…I recognized how much I appreciated my dishwasher. 

I do believe I need to call my father-in-law once again and tell him how grateful I am for it. I just bet he’d enjoy hearing how much his gift means to me.
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I can’t wait to hear about what you’re thankful for this week! Write about it on your blog and come over and link up!
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