We can do it!

I don't know about you, but there are sometimes I feel like I can't do anything right. My kids disobey, I yell. My house is a wreck though I clean all day. The dishes keep piling up even though I try to minimize my dishes usage. The laundry basket never stays empty though I do at least a dozen loads of laundry a week. I fall into bed exhausted every night wondering what happened to my day. What did I do all day?

Yesterday, though, I felt like I did something.

When Patrick opened the fridge last night, poured himself some milk and said "why is the milk warm?", it clicked in my head that a lot of our refrigerated goods were warm yesterday though it didn't strike me until he said something. I felt the butter, it was soft. Oh no, the fridge is broke. So, we went through dinner and our bedtime routine, the whole time wondering what could possibly be wrong. When the kids went to bed, I turned towards the handy, dandy internet to search for an answer to the problem.

Google: Refrigerator is warm

Results, a million.

Wow. Browsing the headlines, I clicked "Refigerator is warm, Freezer too cold". I checked my freezer and there was frost. OK, that's probably a good link. After reading, and troubleshooting, I realized that our condenser coils were very dirty and the coils in the freezer were froze up. Patrick and I removed everything from the freezer and as I vacuumed and defrosted the coils, Patrick cleaned our now-warm refrigerator. All the while I was praising God for the refrigerator in the garage or I we would have lost a lot of food. After 2 hours of cleaning, unscrewing, re-screwing, blow drying the coils, and cleaning again, we were done. And all I had to do was wake up the next morning hoping for a cold fridge.

And guess what? We had a cold fridge.

This morning I fixed our lettuce spinner that I broke yesterday.

I felt like this:


I felt accomplished. Like I had done something. Like I had saved money from calling a repairman. Like I didn't throw $25 down the drain for breaking a salad spinner. Now, don't get me wrong, I would have rather vegged on the couch watching the Biggest Loser (who made the top 3, by the way?). But there was other things that needed to be done.

I'm tired today. Very tired. I don't feel like I can do it today - breaking up fights, turning whining into asking nicely, explaining kindly why I will enforce discipline, listening to Dora one.more.time., wiping tears and runny noses, changing poopy diapers, being spit up on, washing dishes, folding laundry, sweeping my floors. I'm very weary of it all today. But, it can be done. Now the question is, what kind of heart will I have when I do these things? Joyful, right?

I can't do it.

Or can I?

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.