on death and saving

Dec 7, 2011

Of appliances, that is.

My refrigerator had some brown sludge underneath it on Tuesday morning. I investigated the freezer and while it was filthy and badly in need of a clean-out and a cleaning, nothing was oozing down the sides and there was no tell-tale drip down to the floor. So, I asked everyone who spilled the brown sludge and what it was. No one claimed responsibility and I chalked it up to one of those weird mom-moments where once again I was cleaning up yucky stuff that shows up in my house that no one has a clue about.

Later that night, I noticed a clicking, whirring, and whining noise. Keziah claimed it was the oven, which made no sense whatsoever. Why would an oven be clicking? Richard investigated and narrowed the sound down to the fridge area of the house. Upon opening the freezer, water and some not-so-clear gunk were drip, drip, dripping down. Plop. Plop. Uuuuggghhh!

We quickly put ice into the fridge to keep things in there cold and Richard ran to the store to buy a thermometer. Unfortunately our efforts with stockpiling ice inside our fridge failed and this morning the temperature was 51 degrees. Right in the middle of the spoilage zone. The bad news is, we have now lost all the food that was in the freezer and almost all the food that was in the fridge. The good news is we didn’t have a ton of food in there to begin with (unlike the time our freezer broke right after we had filled it hundreds of pounds of bananas, berries, and elk meat).

So, this morning I had to deal with a lot of questions. Try to repair it or chuck it and buy a new one? If repair, which shop to book? The cheapest? The fastest? The most expensive? The friendliest voice on the phone? If replace it, how exactly will we buy a new one? Look for a new-used one or a new-new one? Save the sour cream or throw it out? Save Tasha’s yummy rice or assume it will give us food poisoning? Hmmmmmmm.

While I made a gazillion phone calls, scoured the internet for information on what could be wrong, and directed the food-throw-out-or-put-in-the-cooler affair, my children were able to feast on the pears and oranges our church brought over last night – thank you Elder’s Quorum!

The hardest decision for me was to decide to risk having a repairman come out and having to pay a $65 service fee just to find out that it was not, in fact, fixable. Nonetheless, I made just that decision and prayed it would be fixable.

After the girls dealt with all the food, the phone calls had all been made, and most of the questions had been answered…yes, try to repair it, I think it is worth the risk, book with the guy who sounded the friendliest and wasn’t the cheapest, but a LOT cheaper than the most expensive shop, if it doesn’t work, buy a used one for cheap-o off of Craig’s List, save the sour cream, and toss the rice…I decided since the fridge was empty, I might as well clean it thoroughly.

The girls thought I was ridiculous. “Why clean it if it is dead?” and “Seriously, you are going to scrub it clean when it is going to the dump!?!” I replied, “Yes, I don’t want the repairman to have to look at our yucky fridge and I don’t want to send a filthy fridge away and on the off chance it is salvageable, I would like to have a clean fridge.” They continued to think I was nuts. BUT, they helped.

I emptied all the icky water out of the bottom of the freezer. I sprayed and scrubbed and sprayed and scrubbed and became thoroughly disgusted with myself that my fridge was so despicable. I scrubbed up whatever hardened yellow substance had spilled all down the back of the fridge compartment. I emptied out spilled rice and almonds from the non-hooked-up ice maker. The girls washed all the drawers and shelves in the sink and when the inside was spotless we put all the parts and pieces back in. I believe it is the cleanest it has ever been, including the day it was installed by whichever former owner of this house installed it.

And when the repairman came, it smelled and looked clean. I didn’t have to die of mortification. And, in the first 60 seconds he was in the house, he determined it was the relay, not the compressor. So, it wasn’t dead, just in need of some help to bring it back to life. $120 later, our fridge is cooling down and sometime in the next several hours we will be back in the business of having chilled food once again.

And it is clean.

This is quite a long post about a silly appliance, but bear with me. All this talk of death and saving and cleaning and emptying really got me thinking today about how much effort Christ goes to to save us. If we will allow Him to do so, He will cleanse us, do anything He can to save us, and He literally brings us back to life. He will not leave us because the repair bill is too high, nor will He call in the cheapest or the fastest or the friendliest repair guy. He will do the work Himself and He will do it by sharing His heart, holding us close, helping us forsake our sins, being resurrected so that we might live again, and never giving up even when we seem like we are goners. He thinks we are worth it. He knows we are worth it.

We just need to believe Him.