Counting

This weekend I noticed lots of everyday situations that have gone right lately. When I started making a mental list of all these superficially simple blessings, I kept thinking of more until my brain couldn’t hold them all and I had to write them down. “Count your blessings, name then one by one…” While I understand the idea behind this phrase, I am not really a fan of actually counting such multifaceted things as blessings–numbers are far too bald to convey the depth of the benefit behind a bland numerical label. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful gift to step back from the thick of life and notice God’s hand in the details.

Recent tender mercies, aka everyday blessings, in ten unnumbered anecdotes:

*Mixer: About two weeks ago, a gear inside our trusty 11 year old KitchenAid mixer got stripped during an ill-fated attempt to mix Oreos into rock solid ice cream. The mixer motor would run, but nothing would rotate. We frantically researched possibilities: cost of parts, videos on how to open up the motor, DIY repair videos, and potential repair services. Nothing yielded useful results. The DIY repair videos showed Jeff that this was more than his limited skill set could handle (we couldn’t even get the mixer open to look at the motor), and taking it in to get repaired was too expensive to be worthwhile. We probably should have called around and asked friends for recommendations, but a quick search of internal parts for KitchenAid mixers told us that the parts were nearly as expensive as the whole. Our poor old white mixer sat sadly on our kitchen counter for a week while we considered options. We had just used our July flex-funds to purchase a sturdy roof rack for our van, so it seemed prudent to wait to replace the KitchenAid until next month at the earliest, since we are on a snug savings schedule to fund the travels we enjoy so much.

Then a few days later we received a check in the mail for $241. It was from VEBA, a recent benefit added to Jeff’s medical plan that reimburses employees for out of pocket medical expenses. During July, Jeff had finally gotten around to submitting the receipts from our long sick winter of copays and prescriptions, and the reimbursement check arrived just as we were resigning ourselves to a few weeks without any handy KitchenAid mixing muscle in the kitchen. Since we had already long since paid for the fees that the VEBA check was reimbursing, we used the money to buy a refurbished KitchenAid mixer for $200 on Amazon. Our shiny new mixer came in the mail yesterday.

A fancy mixer is not a necessity of life in any way, but I feel so grateful that it worked out so smoothly anyways. When things fit together so obviously well, I have learned that it is never a mere coincidence. Neal A. Maxwell did say:

“…coincidence is not an appropriate word to describe the workings of an omniscient God. He does not do things by ‘coincidence’ but … by ‘divine design.”

It will always amaze me that God is interested in the small details of my tiny speck of life amidst this big complicated world.

*Jam: My apricot jam set up beautifully! My father-in-law Dan and I usually pick apricots together every summer, but this year he had access to a much smaller number than usual. He gave me enough apricots to make exactly one batch of jam. After last year’s large-scale multi-batch epic apricot failure (think gallons of brown mushy sludge), I was not in the mood to make large quantities of jam. I felt able to handle one single batch, so I quickly threw it together one afternoon, anxiously tilting the jars every few hours to check if the runny hot jam had set. Over and over it was still runny, until the next morning when POOF, it was firm! My jam-confidence began to be restored.

I took it easy on myself and didn’t use the water bath canner; I simply ladled the hot jam into jars, let it set overnight, and then froze the jam. It was the best of both worlds: cooked apricot jam tastes better and sets better than plain uncooked freezer jam, but I didn’t have to go through the difficulty of hyper-sanitizing jars and all of that sweaty exhausting time-consuming difficulty in my tiny kitchen. I am glad to have a couple of pints of summer sunshine in jars. When it comes to preserving the bounty of our valley, sometimes I get stuck in a “go big or go home” rut and think it’s not worth doing if I don’t preserve enough for the entire next year. Not true! Something is always more than nothing, and I would much rather have six pints of beautiful bright orange apricot jam than two gallons of runny brown apricot mush.

*Piano: Our ward primary program is scheduled for ten weeks from today, at the end of September. I have plenty of time to fine-tune the songs I’m playing in it, but I feel unexpectedly confident in how well I can play them already. It soothes my nerves to have the basics all figured out this far in advance.

*Singing: At least once each time I practice piano, I hear one or both of my daughters’ sweet voices singing along with the primary songs while they are playing in the background. It is tender.

*Potty: Amber is really getting the hang of daytime potty use! Our bargain of watching a show or movie after every time she poops in the potty has been excellent motivation. Just this week she has really started taking on responsibility and going to the bathroom without being told. It’s been close to ten days since her last accident! It is truly an answer to countless prayers. Potty training Amber has been a brutal ultramarathon and it’s not over yet, but after months of teeth-clenching patience, it is finally working! I could weep with relief.

*Injury: The scraped, bruised kneecap I sustained during my mid-run fall on Wednesday kept me from running for three days. (I’m so glad it wasn’t longer!) During that time I turned to biking for exercise, which I ended up enjoying immensely, much more than I expected to. My ankles had been aching for weeks when I ran, but after those three consecutive weekdays of rest, they didn’t even creak or twinge once on my first run post-injury! I am so glad that my bruises and scabs were healed enough to allow me to run on Saturday. Running is the key to balancing my inner zen, but I am terrible at taking time off for minor “niggles” as my college coach called functioning injuries. A tennis ball sized kneecap bruise forced me to rest enough so my ankle aches eased.

*Cubs: Having the summer off from cub scouts has been a tender mercy in and of itself, but there’s more. After the draining weekly meetings with eight 8-year-old boys all last school year, I was feeling frazzled and ready to be released from the calling. At church a few weeks ago (July 15th), however, I had several unanticipated gentle promptings to stick with cub scouts. The sweetest one was when I was standing in the hall while the senior primary kids were waiting to enter the primary room for sharing time. Jay’s large class of cute, energetic, now-nine-year-old boys clustered around me and kept telling me Things with their wide intent eyes.

One sweet boy said “I wish I was still in wolf scouts with you. I miss being there with you.” and others were describing projects they had created and activities they had done over the summer. They were all talking over each other, clustered around my waist and clamoring to Tell All Of The Things to me, just like in our den meetings, but the summer of time away from the weekly dread of cub scout chaos allowed me to see the sweetness of the situation. I marveled that they like me so much and had so many good memories with me when I mostly felt so frazzled and pulled in 100 directions at every meeting. I was feeling the love and it softened my cold hard cub scout heart just enough to recognize the feeling for what it was: you can do this hard thing and stay in cub scouts for one more year. Then it will be a different, (hopefully more palatable), church-inspired program instead and hey, maybe I’ll love the new program!

Here is what I wrote in my journal about these thoughts: “Three separate times during church today I had a specific prompting to stick with my cub scouts calling. Ugh, I can barely write it in those bald words, but it is true.” Hah! I crack myself up. Sometimes (too often) I am dragged down the right path kicking and screaming. While I still have the same old issues with the cub scout program (not the boys, never the sweet boys), I feel renewed and supported and understood in regards to the institution. A divine vote of confidence goes a long way!

*TRIPS: I simply adore having a juicy list of trips on the horizon, and August is looking absolutely prime in that regard. I try to keep things in the past and present online, so I will resist listing all of the trips I am excited about over the next month and year, but suffice it to say that I adore traveling, near and far and it is a blessing to be able to do so. As with most blessings, it requires plenty of work on our part, but when careful planning and hard work pay off that only augments the joy of the result!

*VISIT: This morning we visited our old ward in Prosser to hear Peter Cook talk about the mission he just returned from. Jeff was Peter’s home teaching companion from the time Peter was 12 till he (Peter) left on his mission. Peter’s mom is our kids’ piano teacher, and we have always felt a kindred connection with their family. We went to church in Prosser to support the Cooks, but I felt so much while I looked around at all of the other dear faces in the chapel too. Close to half of the people there were complete strangers to me, but mixed in with the new faces were so many solid-gold-souls whom I served, served with, and have been served by countless times during one of the most challenging stages of my life–my childbearing years. Those people were an excellent support system to me. I was astounded to feel such a bright bonded connection with them, even after all of this time (ok, a year) away from them. I did not get to talk to everyone I love there, but I made the few conversations I had count. It was an encouraging reminder of how time and service build a strong, complicated, beautiful bond.

Now, for the grand finale…

*CORN DOG: Yesterday (Saturday), Jeff went to pick up two kayaks and other miscellaneous items from the lakehouse that my parents are giving away before they sell the place (that’s why we invested in the fancy van roof rack). On the way, Jeff wanted a corn dog so he stopped at a Safeway grocery store (of all places) in Enumclaw, WA. But when he tried to pay for his corn dog, all of the cash registers in the entire store malfunctioned. He waited for 15 minutes but finally gave up and continued on his journey to the lakehouse without buying a corn dog.

On the way home, he stopped at the same store to try for his corn dog again. This time he was able to purchase the corn dog and he ate it in the car while he drove. Further down the narrow mountain road (highway 410), he came upon a line of traffic that was just beginning to move forward when he arrived. As he drove through, he saw that the reason for the car clog-up appeared to be some sort of flash flood or mud slide with lots of visible damage on and along the road. He learned that the flood had happened 15 minutes before he passed by that stretch of road. Broken cash registers and a persistent corn dog craving saved him!! Well, those were the means by which he was spared from the danger. I always pray for safety when we travel, (in fact sometimes it seems redundant), but this time was an especially dramatic answer to that average prayer. Jeff arrived home safe and sound a little before 8pm that night.