Garage Door, Me and God

Philippians 4:13

I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.

James 1:2-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers (and sisters) whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

A garage door is meant to go up and down when we want it to…when we push a button or put in a code.  It stays up until we make it go down…that applies for most garage doors…except mine.  Today my garage door decided it  would go up and down when IT decided…not me.

I have mentioned in previous posts that sometimes life is just plain…hard.  And when a day starts out hard those days can sometimes turn into weeks.  We don’t know why and most times it has nothing to do with anything we have done or haven’t done…it’s just life on this planet.  Doesn’t make the “hardness” any easier…we still have to muddle through and get to the other side of the mountain that faces us.  I am learning that life without Rick has a lot of mountains and many “hard” places.  So many things that Rick did that are now my responsibility…I’ve added his jobs to all of mine…that tends to make life hard.  Small things like taking out the trash, getting the oil changed in the vehicles, washing and cleaning out the cars to the larger things of mowing and weed-eating, fixing ANYTHING that needed fixing in the house, helping me keep my mouth shut when I so want to open it and especially giving Spiritual guidance when necessary.  I miss him.  (My boys are doing the mowing and weed-eating now… after I ran the mower down the hill into the fence…and even the oil change in the Jeep…smile)

I especially missed Rick today.  I missed him because I needed him.  Like I said earlier, my garage door has taken on a life of it’s own.  I shut it last night when I drove in after going to a movie with a friend…I know it was shut, I sat in the Jeep and talked on the phone for several minutes after pulling into the garage.  This morning…it was open.  This isn’t the first time it has happened.  Kind of un-nerving…garage doors are suppose to stay closed until we open them.  This morning I did a few things around the house and then decided to go to Taylorsville and pay a few bills and go to the Hardware store.  I started the Jeep and proceeded to back out of the garage…the door was up.  It decided at that moment that it wanted to close (without me knowing it) and I backed right into it just as pretty as you please.   After I screamed and realized what I had done, I got out and saw that the bottom of the garage door was bent, two of the rollers had come out of place and something on the top of the Jeep had popped off and there were white marks all over the back of it.

I looked around to see if there was someone who could help.  My son-in-law George just had his tonsils and everything else in his mouth removed on Tuesday, so he was in no shape to help…Kevin was watching his kids while Sara was at band practice, Jacob was on his 24 hour shift at the Fire station and Joshua was 45 minutes away in Indiana.  So it appeared as if it was just me…and I had no idea how to fix a garage door.  I tried using brute force to get the rollers back into place…my brute force lacked the brute part…it didn’t even budge.  I tried getting a crow bar and prying it…I tried hammering it…nothing.  So with grease all over my hands and frustration all over my face, I went in and had a melt down.  I once again…it seems I’ve been doing this a lot lately…told God that I had no idea why He had let the garage door come down and why He had allowed me to hit it.  But, whatever the reasons were, it was a mess and He had to help me fix it.

I went back out again and looked in Rick’s tool bucket and found a set of pliers.  I went to the door, grabbed the metal with the pliers, pulled and pushed the wheel into place.  Then went to the other side of the garage door and did the same thing.  I climbed up on the ladder and connected the door to the motor and then pushed the button to see if it would close.  It closed…success!  But, when I tried to raise it the door was so warped that it got caught on the house and wouldn’t go all the way up.  Sooo, I climbed on the ladder again, grabbed the garage door and pulled on it again and again until I got as much of the “warp” out of it as possible.  After several attempts to open it all the way…after pulling and prying, it finally went up.  I had fixed the garage door.

When I climbed off the ladder and looked at the garage door I thought of the two verses at the first of this post.  With God helping me…He is proving to me time and time again….that I really can do all things when He is the One strengthening me.  But, the one thing that He impressed upon me today is that when the testing comes…through an illness, a person, loss of job, hurt feelings, loneliness, children, broken mowers, or garage doors that have a mind of their own…we are being tested to see if our faith is real. We MUST persevere!  This verse says that when we are tested, that is the way that we develop perseverance…we must pass the test.  And when we continue to pass the tests that come into our lives and perseverance finishes it work…maturity comes.  And when maturity comes we are able to live daily the life that He has called us to live.  We can live in victory more than in defeat.

A garage door, me and God.  I have no idea what He is maturing me for…what the future holds.  But, today…the test came…perseverance was demonstrated with the help of the Holy Spirit…the garage door works and I’m one step closer to maturity.  Who would of thought?  Praise Him!!!

Sending much love,

Debbie

This entry was written on May 22, 2010 at 11:24 pm