Tip of My Iceberg

My first indication of something a little hinky was the bag of frozen strawberries–more mush than firm and frozen.

Which was when I noticed the green fluid dripping…dripping…dripping slowly down the side of the freezer wall.

Not good.

I found the source of the green fluid–really bad, once frozen, now melting kale.

It didn’t look good when I first put it in there. I’d convinced myself it was a healthy purchase. Great in smoothies. The new super food.

It didn’t look so super. I’d have had to have eaten it to get it’s super powers. Obviously, that didn’t work either.

Now it was a mass of green mush. Not nearly as pleasing as the strawberry mush.

I called our repairman, who is as honest as the day is long. A lovely man who tells it to me straight. I told him the symptoms of my ailing appliance and asked his opinion.

If it was his, he said, he’d trash it.

Super.

This is obviously not the end of the world. A first world problem that would, under any other circumstances, not phase me a bit. We’ve lived through hurricanes where our power was out for days and we ate once frozen stuff till it wasn’t edible.

The little fly in the ointment is that we have friends coming to stay with us for three days. And people coming to dinner to spend some time with these friends.

And no refrigerator.

What makes this even funnier is that I went grocery shopping yesterday.

Yep. I’m fully supplied.

My refrigerator is laughing in my face.

This shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Little things have happened that should have been warning signs. The clickity sound it had begun to make, like it was hatching chicks. The refrigerator part beginning to freeze the produce instead of cooling it. Long periods of silence when it made no sound at all and I thought it was dead. Then it would clickity, and I’d chalk it up to refrigerator indigestion.

I’d put something in there it didn’t like.

John and I went out to look at new refrigerators. An appalling experience because I don’t remember appliances costing that much.

Of course, we haven’t bought one of these things in almost twenty years. But I don’t think we paid this much for our first child.

Things don’t stay the same. New wears off. Things get old and broken. Growing up I heard from my folks that “they just don’t make things the way they used to.” Craftsmanship had been a thing of pride when they were young. It was waning then. It’s worse now. Things we buy don’t last long. Not appliances, cars, clothes or even technology. Smart phones aren’t smart enough to last longer than two years.

In a culture that longs for something–someone–dependable, there’s only One I know of who never changes.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”   Hebrews 13:8

He claimed to be God when He walked the earth. He still is. Righteous, loving, forgiving, full of grace and truth.

I can depend on Him. No matter what’s breaking in my life.

Certainly more than I can my fridge.