Sometimes simple living is a mindset, looking at things from a different perspective.  Keeping our eyes alert to God’s providence takes the stress out of life…a huge step toward a simpler life.  Here is a recent example from our home.  Enjoy.

In mid-October, my music man husband was away performing at a church festival across the mountains in Las Vegas.  Due to the heat and one child’s health, I was left home with my oldest daughter and the three smallest.  The two middles went with Daddy to man (or girl) the CD table.

Those of us who stayed home were quite excited to surprise the others with the amount of work we accomplished while they were away, including cleaning, organizing, and baking two special treats.  (We won’t contemplate here why we get such a large amount accomplished when Daddy’s away, but it does offer food for speculation.)  When we got the call that they were headed through the mountain pass, we started getting a hot dinner ready for our weary crew.

 

CRASH!

 

That was the sound of me—not a small child, not a teenager, but me–complicating life by dropping a cast iron skillet on our glass cooktop.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a glass stovetop shatter, but it is a rather impressive sight.  Depressing, surreal in that slow motion sort of way, but impressive.

When I called my man to share the news, he did what any husband would do who has had the kind of “one thing after another” year that we’ve experienced.  He laughed.

When my music man arrived home and finished duct-taping the stovetop to keep the glass from further spreading, he shared a few discoveries…not mentioning the obvious–that his graceful bride can be a bull in a china cabinet, which we already knew.

First, he told me that the church where he performed had paid him $100 extra—no explanation, no comment, just $100 extra.

Second, he mentioned that CD buyers who said “Keep the change” had added an extra $20 to the till.

Third, he told me about a five-year-old unused $100 Lowes gift card he had just found in his “just a bunch of stuff” drawer.

Do the math.  That’s $220 that we neither had nor needed the day before.

Last, my man checked out the cost of replacement stovetops at Lowes.  I don’t need to tell you how much the cheapest stovetop cost, do I?

 

$220

In the same week I received a $24 rebate and sold an article for $18 and change.  That gave us exactly enough money to get the model that was one step up from the cheapest, and would work better for our heavy usage.

When we arrived at Lowes last week, three weeks after our stovetop’s demise, the model we had in mind was marked down to $250.  It was a mistake, but the store honored the price anyway.

That left us with just enough money to buy my patient husband a little gift—a new Christmas CD to replace the 15-year-old CD that his graceful wife and charming children play incessantly for three months out of every year and which my husband would have been quite willing to shatter himself if he didn’t love us as much as he does.   An unexpected blessing.

 

“Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.”

~Matthew 6:8