I couldn’t go to bed tonight without recording God’s goodness to our family. For months my wife has been asking for and planning on getting a second refrigerator for our garage. That way she can prepare food in advance for special occasions. Not to mention replacing our broken ice maker.
Well, yesterday we both noticed that our refrigerator stopped cooling, so our hopes for two refrigerators quickly dropped to one. We started looking at Craig’s List for a local deal and found a couple, but we didn’t hear back from the sellers. Becky prayed for a refrigerator, but I was too dumb to think of such a good idea. Then we went to bed.
During the chaos of the evening (and as our food slowly warmed) our phone rang, but we were too busy to pick up and we forgot about it. (So goes our life.)
OK…so here’s the really COOL part of the story. This morning Becky told the story of our refrigerator to her Sunday School class. In an amazing display of Providence, Becky’s teaching partner, Teresa, said that she had called us last night to ask if we knew of anyone needing a refrigerator. They were upgrading their kitchen appliances this weekend and wanted to give away their old refrigerator for free. Can you believe that!?!
So this afternoon Ainsley, Abby and I went over to their house, which is just around the corner. Teresa’s husband, Scott, helped me load and transport their old fridge to our house. Turns out their refrigerator was bigger and the water dispenser in the door actually worked. Ice maker didn’t work, but we’re used to that!
On top of all of that, tonight I plugged in the old refrigerator and it is working again! So God completely surprised us by providing us with a second refrigerator at no cost to us. It’s amazing that God could use an appliance to glorify Himself and bless so many of His children.
God is faithful! You can trust Him!
- That face. We looked through an entire Baby Names book to find the perfect name. The ONLY name that fit that face was Bentley. (Please excuse the other two characters in the picture below!)
- Arm wrestling. Actually his mouth, my arm. He loved to throw his paw over my arm and pretend like he was going to bite me, but was always gentle.
- Scratching at the door. Didn’t matter which door. If he wanted to be on the other side he let you know with a single yelp or a single scratch on the door.
- Giving up so quickly on ball or Frisbee chasing. Bentley loved to chase the ball or Frisbee. He just didn’t like to do it more than three or four times. Now if you throw in some tug-o-war he might stay interested.
- Sleeping ALL OVER the house. He loved to lay down between the coffee table and the couch, then get up and move to the tile entrance, then the kitchen floor, and on he went. You never knew where you’d find him. But he loved his sleep! It was always funny when we’d be watching a movie and hear him start to whimper and shake his body. Boy, he wanted that squirrel!
- Welcome home groggies. We would pull into the driveway and open the garage door and there he would be standing up and stretching from his nap. ALWAYS standing in the way. “Come, come, Bentley” and he’d make his way to the front of the house. We’d have to jump out of the car very quickly to make sure he didn’t start chasing a pedestrian or dog walking by.
- Middle-of-the-night potty breaks. Sometimes he’d wake us up in the middle of the night because of the urge to purge. (Sometimes he just wanted to be outside.) I hated it. I’d have to stay up for a good fifteen minutes because he had to find his spot, do his business, and come back. On many occasions, he wouldn’t come back to the door and I didn’t want to yell into the night and wake everyone up. I’d turn off the outside lights, go outside in my bare feet and bare necessities, find him and whisper as loud as I could for him to come in. Very frustrating, but I’m still going to miss that.
- Playing with the kids. He was so gentle and fun-loving. The kids would be chasing each other and he wanted in on the action. He was such a horse that he’d end up knocking one of the little ones over with his bushy tail or big rump. He loved to shake hands with them. He must have loved the kids so much because he liked to leave little presents near the sandbox!
- Watching Becky care for him. Becky would clip his toenails, cut off the matted hair, groom him, clean his ears and eyes. When he was groomed he looked like royalty, a real king of the backyard jungle with his stately mane.
- His mane and his big, square hips. I LOVED running my hands through his incredibly soft, white mane. It was so stress-relieving and he loved it, too. But even more he loved backing up into you, just begging you to scratch the top of his rump. His back hips were shaped like a big square box. I always thought it was cool.
