FURNACE!

It had been a bit temperamental the last few days. Breaker tripping often. Suddenly losing cooling. It finally just quit Friday evening. Dead—my A/C at home.
Now I can take a lot of appliances quitting in my place without turning a a hair. Fridge? Sure! (As long as there aren’t any cheesecakes stashed away within.) Microwave? Begone! Range? Who cares! But lose my A/C? In Dallas. Not in the summer. Not with the mercury climbing into three figures Fahrenheit.

But it did quit. And the guys who heal these contraptions couldn’t show up until the next day. So there I was sweltering and suffering.

A few degrees of snow would have been nice, I thought. (Thankfully, I immediately returned to sanity!)

That night, I shifted into my living room, below my bedroom, for a half-degree more of comfort, fans blasting away. I took to the couch. Whew! How am I going to sleep, I wondered. I decided to usher in those Zs by re-reading Harry Potter VI (and to get me ready for the movie release this Wednesday—Yup! Tickets already bought!). Wrong idea. Reading HP doesn’t exactly cool one off; that’s not what one would call a soporific tome. Somnolence it certainly doth not induce.

Finally I drowsed off.

Suddenly it’s 3:00 am and my neighbor decides to have a go on his bass guitar. Not a good night at all!

It wasn’t that loud or anything, but in my rather broiled and sensitive state of mind, I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I decided to turn on my music on to drown out aforementioned instrument of torture.

But Bach sounded horrible with my neighbor’s cacophonic accompaniment. I abandoned Bach and went to ear plugs.

Nope, not a good night at all.

But I had a lot of time to think about things—mostly in a fit of ire while drowning in a sea of sweat.

Gosh, how we take things for granted! Only when you’ve lost something do you realize how important that was.

Cold air. Peace. Quiet. Harry Potter. Cheesecake. Health. Livelihood. Loved ones. There really is no guarantee that we will have continual access to any or all of these, is there? God might choose to take them away at any time.

I realized that I needed to be more thankful for all that I have. After all, we deserve nothing!

What do you have
that you did not receive?
And if you did receive it,
why do you boast as if
you had not received it?
1 Corinthians 4:7

It’s all the grace of God, isn’t it? What we are, where we are, what we have, where we go, what we do, …. All God’s grace and God’s grace alone.

But by the grace of God I am what I am,
1 Corinthians 15:10

And so we must be thankful. Ever grateful.

In everything give thanks;
for this is God's will for you
in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:18

In everything. For everything.

Whatever you do in word or deed,
do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks through Him
to God the Father.
Colossians 3:17

Hold everything/everybody lightly. And give thanks!

Of course, the greatest blessing we have, which can never be taken away from us is the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. And for that, too, we must be thankful. That, too—and especially that—is a gift to us who were undeserving.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
2 Corinthians 9:15

Don’t sweat it. Give thanks!