It’s been a frustrating morning. Technology is against me, children are hanging on my neck and high spirits are flagging. I’m searching for the inspiration I have had lately, and worry that it’s gone- that all the work I have put into the last few months will be swallowed up in the endless round of dishes and laundry. And it’s storming outside. Again. It’s one of those days where memory is a spiritual duty- where I have to force myself to recall those other times where God has provided the patience, the endurance, and the daily bread. That He cares about the big and the little, like when the milk is spilled for the eighth time this week, or the uncertainty about our financial future. I have forgotten to remember too many times.
I was seven or eight when my parents bought their first house. It was cute and cozy and just big enough for eight people. But the kitchen was totally insufficient. There was a tiny alcove where the stove, sink and fridge were crowded, and in between the kitchen door and the back door was space for one very small round table. My dad worked nights so we rarely ate dinner with him, but when he was home for Sunday lunch, he and mom would have to eat in the living room while the six girls crammed around the kitchen table.
It wasn’t long before they were talking about an addition to the back of the house. I was too little to remember how all the decisions were arrived at, but I remember when they started tearing up the back yard and laying a foundation for a new kitchen.
It was an exciting time, with lots of workers coming and going (mostly my uncles, if I recall) and visible progress being made every day when we got home from school. I remember the excitement, but I also remember the background conversations between my parents about the cost of materials, the unexpected expenses, the wondering if we could finish it. I remember mom praying that God would provide the funds. I began to worry that we would have that big gaping hole in the back of the house forever, and wouldn’t it be cold in the winter? How were we ever going to find the hundred dollars or so we would need to finish it? (that was about as large a sum of money as I could comprehend at the time).
My dad worked as a restaurant manager, and every year the local restaurant supply company held a big golf tournament. I was proud of dad, because I knew he was a good golfer. Every year he came home with a prize. One year it was a blender, the next a set of enormous beer glasses that we had no room to store. But they were prizes, and dad had won them! I wondered what he was going to bring home that particular year. Maybe a waffle iron?
As the story goes, Mom answered a phone call that afternoon, and could hardly hear Dad because of the noise in the background. It sounded like a raucous party, and mom couldn’t figure out what he was saying. Finally she heard him say, “Hey honey, I just won 5,000 dollars at the golf tournament.” The room behind him exploded into laughter. It sounded like a bar. He was at a bar. Then he said, “Sorry honey, just kidding, I just won 10,000 dollars.” More laughter in the background caused mom to say in disgust, ‘Oh John, you’re drunk!” But he wasn’t. Well, maybe just a little.
When mom picked us up from school that day, there was a crowd of excited people around our beat up old van. Someone was laughing and pinning a homemade badge onto my mom’s sweater that said “Rich man’s wife.” We soon found out that there had been one particular green at the golf course that day that had a prize attached to it. And it wasn’t a waffle iron. If anyone hit a hole-in-one at that green, they would get 10 grand. And my daddy had done it. Such fame and wealth was too much for me to comprehend! We could finish the addition, and we were rich for life! It was years before I found out that the 10,000 had quickly disappeared into the new kitchen, and that we weren’t in fact, rich for life. But the kitchen was a grand thing- spacious and full of light- where we spent many happy meals with all of us fitting around one table with room to spare. God hasn’t always answered our prayers in such a dramatic fashion, but I began then to learn that not a sparrow falls from it’s nest, nor a golf ball into a hole, without the will of our Father in heaven.