When the House Goes Dark

 

 

“Good news,” my wife told me over the phone.  “Our power is back on.”

It was good news.  We had had a bit of snow followed by a lot of freezing rain and the end result was down power lines and lots of trees pulled down.  Our power had gone off at 5 that morning and it apparently had blinked back to life sometime in the late afternoon.

Part of the problem with living in a rural area is that when you lose power, not only do you lose the ability to cook and run your heat, but your well pump doesn’t work either.  Suddenly, flushing the toilet and taking showers jumps to the top of activities you want to do – only you can’t.

I came home to find electric lights burning brightly.  When I turned a faucet on a little later, water flowed out in an unbroken stream for me to wash my hands and continued until I turned it back off.

Oh, bliss...

All was well until about 8:30 that evening.

Our family was sitting together, and I was reading a short devotional when, all of a sudden, the power blinked, came back on, blinked again, and then with the finality of a judge’s gavel, shut off completely, leaving us in the dark.

“OH NO!!”  Our youngest, Elise said.  “Turn on the lights!”

“We can’t,” Elaine said.  “There must be power lines down between here and the power station.”

I went to grab a flashlight.  When I returned, my oldest son said, “You know what’s nice Dad?”

“What’s that, Vincent?”  I couldn’t see any silver lining at the moment – mostly because I was having a hard time seeing.

“There’s power in the blood!”  He said.  The Dad jokes start young these days.

It was awfully dark that night.  There were no night lights and no forty minute showers.  Just blankets and bed and boredom.

(Interestingly, we were still able to power on all of the old-fashioned books in the house...)

The power stayed off until the following afternoon.  It was a blessing that it came on when it did – I knew several families in the area who didn’t get power back for nearly a week after the ice storm.

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  (I Thessalonians 5:18)

I’m not sure what to be thankful for in a situation where you lose power for roughly 36 hours.  The fact that it came back on for a four hour stretch in the middle?  The fact that we didn’t lose it for longer?

What I know for certain is that I value things more after I lose them.  So much of life centers around things that we take for granted.  These are things like health and functioning vehicles and even electricity.  When those things go away, even for a short period of time, suddenly the difficulty level of getting through our days ramps up considerably.

I would love to learn to be thankful for things that I have, long before the house goes dark.

Before I Was Born

 

A wailing sound came from the middle seat of our minivan.  We were on our way to church, and someone was NOT in the Spirit.  Not at all.

That person was the youngest member of our family, Elise.

“Who’s bothering Elise?”  I asked in a somewhat grumpy voice.  Other people sing hymns all the way to church, but in the Waldron family, we simply survive, like people in a lifeboat dropped from the deck of the Titanic.  Sometimes we even listen to "Nearer My God to Thee" to lift our spirits.

“No one is bothering her,” Victoria put in.  “She just started crying.”

“Why are you upset, Elise?”  Elaine asked.

“I’m not upset,” Elise said, stopping crying for a moment.  “I’m just sad that you all went to Israel without me!”

“Oh,” I said, not sure what to say.  The trip in question happened in the summer of 2017 and Elise wasn’t born till September of 2019.  “We didn’t leave you behind,” I said.  “You just weren’t born yet.”

This inspired more crying.  “Why didn’t you wait?”  Elise asked.  This was the sort of question that had no answer, certainly not an answer that would satisfy a five-year old who feels anguish in response to all of the things her family did before she was born.

Of course, for most of us, there is a lot more history that precedes the date of our birth than has come since then.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter.  There are far more things that we haven’t done than that we have done and far more places we haven’t visited than those we have.

…And I’ve never been to Boston in the fall!

“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”  (Philippians 4:12,13)

Satisfaction grows out of contentment, not out of pursuing all of the things this world claims will satisfy.  Knowing Elise, even if she had visited Israel, she would have something else she was dissatisfied with – a Lego set she didn’t have or some other place where she wanted to vacation.

That’s normal for a five-year-old, but I do hope she grows – not in her desires, but in her ability to be content.  This is something that even people ten times her age can learn better.  The most joyful people also have the most contentment – not because they have the most, but simply because they have learned to be satisfied, even in periods of want.