Friday, January 22, 2010

sometimes Jesus uses fireplace tongs in our lives

Normally, we use keys to get into our house.
It works best that way. But the other night, we had to get creative.
It was my sister-in-law, Cheri's birthday.
We were supposed to meet at a restaurant to celebrate.
We were running late. Emotions were running high.
I called out things like,
"We are late!" and "Get in the car!" and "Why don't you have pants on?"
Jack couldn't find his jacket. So he took the keys out to the car to look for it.
Finally, everyone was outside. I locked the door and shut it behind me,
just in time to hear Scott say to Jack, "What do you mean you don't have the keys?"
So here we were outside of our home, which was locked up tightly like Fort Knox, with no keys on hand and a party to be at.
While Scott says he remained calm and rational, I would say at this point,
there was a small chance that his head was going to explode....
or at least a small vein that was pulsating on his forehead. I wasn't far behind.
It was raining. We were all highly irritated.
We began casing the joint like a family of highly advanced cat burglars.
We checked windows, screens and sliding glass doors. All shut tight.
Being outside the house, in the rain, Scott began to prepare to live off the land like Bear Grylls in Man vs. Wild, since we were not getting in.
Finally, he found one window he could slide partially open save for the fact that a piece of wood was placed in the window casing to KEEP BURGLARS OUT.
Than began the search for something long and skinny to stick through the window to leverage the piece of wood with and pop it out.
We tried a light saber. A wiffle ball bat. A fireplace shovel. And a rake.
Finally we tried the tongs from the outdoor fireplace.
Which almost worked except for the fact that they kept popping open.
Then Scott thought maybe he could fit Addison through, momentarily forgetting that our children all have ginormous heads. It was a no go.
All the while, Jack kept apologizing knowing that he was in some deep I-may-not-get-computer-time-for-a-year trouble, and Will, who sings when he gets nervous, was singing a nerve grating-ly high song of his own making and the more tense it got, the faster Will sang.
This caused me to yell out into the night, "Everyone be quiet!"
alerting the neighbors that all was not well in Casa Aughtmon. Muy triste.
Finally, Scott went in search of other windows with Jack and Addison
and I gave the tongs another go.
I looked at Will, who was next to me, and said, "Will, Jesus needs to help us."
So I prayed, "Jesus, please help us."
And not 30 seconds later the tongs miraculously popped the piece of wood out of the casement, causing Will and I to rejoice in celebration.
It was like we all got set free. There was a moment of euphoria.
There may have been some tears of joy. We were high 5-ing each other.
Scott said, "I think we need to give God a high five."
And Addison said, "Air high-5!" and high 5-ed the air in God's general direction.
We grabbed the keys and loaded up in the car.
We were a 1/2 an hour late but we were on our way.
After it got quiet in the car, Will said,
"Mom, I think you should have prayed earlier."
Hindsight is 20/20. Next time, I'll pray first before I try to break into my house.


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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Ok. Seriously. That was awesome. Especially when you said you were "casing the joint" like some gangstas from the '30's.

Kelly @ Love Well said...

Virtual high five!

What a great story -- with a terrific ending.

Amy Liz said...

So...we were all set to head out this summer for a fun, family bonding walk through our neighborhood when, as my husband pulled the door shut, we realized neither of us had the house keys. We looked all around the house for an open window (b/c it was summer time, and it would seem appropriate to have an open window...somewhere!), but no luck. We ended up having to borrow a ladder and break in to one of the windows on the 2nd floor of the house. We really did try to have the fun, family walk, but the stress was as thick as the hot summer air! It has given us something to look back and laugh about. :)

Pilgrim said...

What an awesome story... and what a great opportunity for the kids to see God at work. Thanks so much for sharing it!