Philippians 4:19But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
There are times when God is watching out for you in so many ways that you can't even imagine. Sometimes He makes His plans known, but often He does not. Sometimes we chalk things up to "coincidence", in yet we are not seeing the workings of our ever present Father in heaven who knows and plans for our needs. Sometimes He answers our prayers that we have not even prayed, and then when we see the answer, we can only give Him the credit. This is what happened the other day around here.
I happened to be once again complaining about dishes. How I can't seem to teach the kids to do them properly. How I can't stay on top of them because there's so many. And then when I get finished the ones I have, I find more. On a random counter. In a bathroom. Under the table. In the car. All those places where *people* (unnamed, of course) are not supposed to be eating. I try to remain ever vigilant about making kids eat at the table, but that doesn't always happen either. Of all the household chores, dishes seemed to remain the thorn in my shoe that festered in my feet, but never resolved itself.
I will note in the past that random people (husband, mom, m-i-l) have suggested getting a larger sink, but I declined the offer. For some reason I thought that a bigger sink would make me neglect the dishes even more than I do now. If a small sink accumulates 25 dishes, wouldn't a big one accumulate 50? Or more? Not what I wanted (or needed) in my day. We had planned to remodel our kitchen this past summer, and were going to try the bigger sink when we did that. But, those plans fell by the wayside, being a busy "baby year". They got put back in the "someday" file for now.
Now, back to the present. The bigger sink option was brought up again. I shopped online a bit. I talked to my experienced mom who suggested a sink that was bigger on one side and smaller on the other, so I can soak big things but still have a rinsing sink too. I told my dear patient husband that I was ready for a bigger sink should we come across a good deal somewhere. I really wanted one of those shiny farmhouse (apron front) sinks, but our present cabinets wouldn't fit one very well. Oh, well. Lots of money saved.
That very day, Greg said, "I think Jeremy (our neighbor) is remodeling his kitchen and I think I saw a sink in their yard. Let's check when we drive by next time." When we drove by, yes, they did have a kitchen sink in their yard. But, we were in a hurry so thought that we'd stop next time around. When we were coming home that evening at about 10:30 p.m., we noticed that Jeremy's kids were out playing in the yard and that the front door was open. Greg stopped, got out and checked out the sink quickly and then asked the kids if their dad was home. He was and said that we could have the sink. Yay! We didn't really look too closely, because it was bigger than ours, and it was free. That was enough for now!
When we got home, we found out that it was one of the lopsided ones which we wanted, and it was wayyy bigger than our old one. And it had an awesome faucet on it too. Our old sink, was both bowls 13" square and only a meager 5" deep. When Greg was taking it out, he found a sticker on the bottom that said, "For RV Use Only". Yeah....The new sink is 8" deep, 8"x12", and 10" deep and 17"x18". Massive amounts of room, and a rinsing sink too. It's also a brown color, which won't be nearly as fussy to keep clean as the gleaming white farmhouse would be. I priced out a similar sink and found that it is worth about $325, and the faucet about $200. So, we saved ourselves a monumental $525. Score! (It turns out that Jeremy had bought it at a Habitat for Humanity store, so he didn't pay full price either. They weren't able to use it themselves and had bought another.)
So, sometimes God answers prayers that we haven't even asked. Because He just knows what we need and when the right time is too. In the big things, but also in the little things, we can trust that He is faithful. Sometimes this isn't material things, but sometimes it is. Sometimes He looks out for us in every single way, including the kitchen sink.
I also was the recipient of an anti-fatigue mat from Greg this week also. While his coworkers have been making cool stuff like syrup spoons for Dutch Bros., Greg has been making molds for these mats. They are rather intense to machine, as they have about 1000 rubber holes/pegs on the back which is what bears and evens out the weight. This one has a basket weave finish on top, which also rather time consuming to program and machine. I have been wanting one for a while, and an employee brought Greg a factory second that I could have. It feels amazing after standing on the floor or the cheapy ones I had from Big Lots. No comparison! It is made of rubber, so you think it will not be comfortable, but it is. And it matches my new sink. I guess brown is the new black. At least in this house! Here's their website: Smart Cells USA They have an engineer who used to work at Nike who designs these mats. They also make shoe insoles and various other mats. And they're made up in Chehalis, just a ways from here.
