Eyes to See…by Carol Boley

At first I thought it was just a sliver of ice melting on the floor. I wiped up the little puddle and didn’t give it another thought. When I went back to the refrigerator an hour later, the puddle was back. Uh oh. Opening the freezer door, I noticed every package of broccoli, every bag of strawberries, every container of chicken stock was soft and dripping.

Great. We ran through the usual checklist of possibilities and, finding no solutions, decided our best choice was to call the repair company. I could see dollars flying out the door, some winging their way into the service man’s pockets and others crashing into the garbage can in the form of spoiled food. Dang!

Days later the repairman showed up, determined he couldn’t diagnose the problem because the refrigerator’s computer (Really? Even the refrigerator has a computer?) needed to reset. In the meantime, we were “camping out” in the kitchen, using a styrofoam ice chest to cool our milk and prescription eye drops.

When he came back a week later, he consulted refrigerator HQ. They decided it needed a new compressor, which would have to be ordered from out of state and would take another week to ten days to arrive.

In the meantime, we remembered a small dorm-sized refrigerator out in my husband’s “man-cave,” which could only be accessed by going outside. We started using it…better, but it was so inconvenient trudging out to the separate garage every time we wanted a can of pop or first thing in the morning for milk. Still, it beat making an “ice run” everyday, pouring the water from the styrofoam chest and then replacing everything.

And then it hit me. “Let’s bring the little refrigerator inside.” Oh my. The solution was so obvious, I was ashamed I hadn’t thought of it before.

How many other times has the solution to a problem been right before my eyes but I have missed it, usually because my mind starts whirling, going into “search and destroy” mode, trying to come up with an answer before I stop, take a deep breath, and ask my Father what He thinks?

I’ll tell you–too many times. It’s a lesson I keep learning, as I “fix my eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Like the power of our loving Father to make obvious the solution to a problem.