Ode to my fridge...

How odd for me to blog on my fridge, but blog I must! I have been blessed beyond recall!
But it was not always thus. Just a few months ago, okay, days ago, I treated it with utter disdain. Our food has even committed foodaside just to get out of the box. Since the bars on the door are gone the food leaps to its death at our feet on a regular bases. Of course there is no need to insist food live on the door. "Someone" (actual name, we have no idea of who "someone" is of course) "Someone" in this house thinks nothing of leaving a gallon of milk precariously hanging between life and death as the door is swung open by the next hapless purveyor. More then once I have threatened "someone" with a hurting behind but have yet to catch that someone.
The thermostat does not work right so the top shelf freezes my sour cream and the bottom bin has been known to carry nothing except the paint brush I never got around to washing. In between is packed with Ketchup and mustard and my crock-pot for the next nights dinner...of course I can't put anything on the shelves in the door because I am into foodaside prevention at all costs.
As you can see, the fridge has given me ample reason to hate it. It's too small, it is in pieces, it does not work right!

But on Tuesday night, proving that God can use anything in our lives to bless us, He used that little fridge in a big way.
To quote my dad, "Things are tight all over." and this week was tight in a way we have never known before. John and I have become committed to living debt free and so we have spent the last six months working towards that goal. At the same time as we went cold turkey on incurring any debt, we began a full biblical tithe of all God has proved us with. Our God makes it very clear that He will open the store houses of Heaven IF we obey Him...still a scary thing to do when you write out that first check for a full tithe though. But God's word also tells us to test Him in this...the only time in all of scripture that we are told to test Him. So we did...
I could fill the entire megabyte space of this blog telling how He blessed us from that first tithe. Gifts that arrived for no good reason, checks from odd places, even debts forgiven...
But like I said, things were tight last week after an unexpected bill had come in. We had to dip into the grocery envelop to make the ends meet. The grocery envelope had only $40.00 left for a family of seven....for a week.

We made due with what we had. There was no bail out. Perceived needs became wants last week and we ate like kings...poor kings of a destitute nation, but kings non-the-less. No one went hungry even once. There were coupon deals (Thank you to Jennifer for the Lemonade Connection. Check it out here: http//www.thelemonadeconnection.com/) and there was a rebate in the car from Walgreen's, but the prize was in that fridge.

On Tuesday night while the dough spun in the bread machine and after we had eaten our gourmet pizza, I began to cry. I had nothing to put on that bread the next day for lunch. I could make French Toast for breakfast, but what would I pack for John and the kids for lunch? We had truly eaten our selves out of house and home. What in the world was I going to do...It was time to rob Peter because Paul was going to need to eat.

My head was in the fridge, knowing it held no magic answers but my head was in there anyway like a reverse order of Sylvia Plath. In a combination of a PMS moment and a bit of despair something caught my eye...in the corner of the top frozen shelf was a package I didn't remember from my previous attempts of sticking my head in there. Just enough...just enough of a package of Land O' Lakes cheese to make four lunches the next day. I immediately began to praise my God for providing my family with lunch! He didn't make me wait until the morning to bless me. He let me have a good nights sleep, knowing the meals would be made until payday after all.

We often joke around here that all things are possible on pay day...but our God has shown us that all things are possible for those who love the Lord and are called according to His good purpose.
Yes, indeed, I spent my morning scrubbing that terrific fridge (it is easier to do when it's empty!) and making my grocery list for the day of shopping that lay ahead.
But before all of that ~ I sent my tithe and frankly I can't wait to see what He is going to do next in the lives of these kids of His.
So today, I thank my God for a wonderful,little, fridge that was full of manna in the form of cheese.