Mundane Mercies: Seeing God’s Hand in All of Life’s Ups and Downs
I sighed as I walked to my bedroom, passing a drying rack full of pants and baskets of laundry haphazardly stacked next to it. Seven kids means endless laundry as it is, but now, there were so many more loads waiting to be done.
Nearby, my dryer sat obstructing the hallway, in at least a hundred pieces. Such a mess, I grumbled as I shuffled around getting ready for the day.
Several weeks ago, I had opened my dryer door to discover the clothes were still damp and cold at the end of a cycle. Annoyed, I shoved the door closed and crudely punched the buttons to restart so it could do a proper job this round. I don’t have time for a malfunctioning dryer!!
When I checked on the clothes a few minutes later, the dryer was spinning, but the clothes were still cold. Why isn’t there heat? An idea came, and I walked to the stove where I picked a knob, and click, click, poof, the burner lit, just as it normally does. Surely, we aren’t out of propane.
It had been a while since we had a fill-up, so I decided it would be worth pulling on a pair of boots and heading to the propane tank outside to check the gauge. Sure enough. Almost at zero.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped my husband’s contact.
“I think we are out of propane,” I started in, without a greeting. “The dryer isn’t working, and I just checked the tank. The meter reads nearly zero. The stove lit, but the dryer is cold.”
“I’ll call the propane company,” Andrew replied. “The line to the stove probably still has a little gas, but don’t use the burners so we can maintain pressure in that line until we get a fill-up.”
I shut the mudroom door behind me and sighed, clearing off the drying rack that had held our family’s wet winter gear the past few months. I pulled the cold clothes from the dryer and laid them efficiently over the dowels.
It took several days, but the propane company finally came and filled up the tank. Clothes were then eagerly shoved into the dryer and started. I was glad to be done with the chaotic drying racks and sheets hanging over barstools and railings to dry.
But the clothes were still cold. I dialed my husband again and when he heard my whine, he assured me, “There’s probably air in the line. Just restart the dryer a few times and it should work.”
It didn’t.
Despite working two seasonal jobs at the time, Andrew eventually began the painful task of pulling the dryer off its platform and disconnecting everything. He enlisted the help of our kids to hold things, fetch things, shine light in dark places, and keep track of screws while he tore the dryer apart. He tested connections and even hauled the dryer outside and blew the thing free of lint, hoping that would cure it. He ordered various parts and multiple times put the whole thing back together, requiring both adults and kids to move the dryer back where it belongs and get it connected properly. To no avail.
He even lay on the floor next to the dryer, researching new ones and asking me questions about size, features, etc.
Finally, he discovered the problem. An internal heat sensor had triggered and shut everything down. It refused to allow gas to flow to the dryer because the temperature reading was too high—tripped by a lint backup and poor vent connection.
As Andrew explained this, I felt the breath immediately sucked from my lungs. This safety feature likely prevented a fire. And we know keenly what it’s like to go through a fire. Almost four years prior, our home had burned to the ground in the middle of the night. Our children and dog were mercifully spared, but our house and belongings were a complete loss. The physical rebuilding took nineteen months, but the emotional scars from that event still live on today. The mere idea of fire hits quite differently after you’ve experienced its traumatic destruction personally.
John Piper once tweeted, “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”[1] Our minds cannot comprehend the details and protections that the Lord is weaving together for our benefit: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33).
Sometimes the safeguards God employs in our lives look a lot like inconvenience. We get frustrated by the roadblocks in our way or interruptions to our plan, not grasping what these obstructions could be shielding us from—or how God might use them to cultivate greater humility and dependence on him.
With every frustration and annoyance of motherhood in a fallen world, we have an opportunity to trust God’s sovereign judgment even more. To open our eyes to his love and care and to keep trusting his faithfulness. To remember that the Lord is working in all things—even down to broken appliances.
When I realized this nuisance with our dryer could have been yet another traumatic event in our lives, my heart flooded with relief. I saw those stacked-up laundry baskets through new eyes—no longer an annoying mess but a beautiful reminder of the Lord’s gracious protection. They became a powerful nudge to have a heart of gratitude, rather than grumbling, when things don’t go the way I want.
Today, as I walk past the drying rack I will soon be putting away, I will remember the faithfulness of the Lord. Truly, he “is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Ps. 145:9, KJV)—in every single mundane moment.
[1] https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-is-always-doing-10000-things-in-your-life
