Friday, June 2, 2017

"Of String Trimmers and Hemostats"


"Of String Trimmers and Hemostats"     
  
  
    The following is a true story (the only kind I hope to tell).  It also correlates perfectly with yesterday's message about God's detailed involvement in our lives.

    Yesterday morning, as I placed a load of clothes in the washing machine, I felt something in a pocket of one of Frances's work uniforms.  Fishing my hand into the pocket, I brought forth a pair of hemostats, the plier-like tools that no God-fearing, respectable nurse will be caught without.  They use them in ways that the rest of us doubtless know nothing about.  I brought the tool to Frances.   "Wow!" she responded.  "I've been looking for those.  I thought I must have left them in a patient's room" (sure was glad she didn't say "in a patient" :)  ).  I left the tool on the dresser for Frances to put up when she had time.

    Fast forward to several hours later.  I had time to do a little yard work, and went outside with the American male's favorite power device - my trusty and beloved string trimmer!  You can do so much (so much destruction!) with those devices.  And then you can look back to see your handiwork after the job is done.  I didn't have long to work, so I got started and was going along fine until the trimmer just stopped.  I thought my battery had died, and went inside to get another freshly charged unit.  When I installed it on the device, however, the trimmer still didn't work.  I checked the unit closely, and discovered I had somehow picked upon a very thin piece of plastic that had wrapped itself around the driveshaft of the trimmer.  This kept the string cartridge from turning.  A little flap of the plastic protruded.  I pulled on it, and it broke.  Looking more closely into the trimmer, I realized that the remainder of the plastic was wrapped so deeply in the machine that I seemingly had no hope other than to take the trimmer head apart.  I really didn't want to do this, and could not see how I might proceed if I had wanted to make the attempt.  A repair shop came to mind, but realized that a repair bill would likely be nearly as much as simply replacing the unit.  "Oh well" I thought to myself, "I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and get a new one."

   Then it hit me.  "Wait a minute.  What about Frances's hemostat I found this morning?!"  Her tool was a particularly small version, and the thought occurred to me that it might reach into the very belly of the beast (the trimmer, that is).  "If I poke around that driveshaft, I might be able to find and get hold of that plastic strip."  I proceeded into the house, and straight to the dresser where I had laid the hemostat earlier.  I asked Frances if I could borrow it, explaining my dilemma.  She obliged, and I'll make the conclusion of this brief: in less than a minute, I had cleared the clog with those hemostats.  The trimmer worked fine thereafter, and I looked at the results of my labors with even more satisfaction than usual.  Oh yes, I also dutifully returned the hemostat to their owner!

    Some coincidence, huh?  On the very day I would need Frances's very small version of a hemostat, I find them in her uniform.  They were the perfect - and only - tool we own that would have come close to solving the problem.  A string trimmer and a hemostat.   Who would have ever thought that two such different devices would unite to so vividly amplify the Lord's minutely detailed working in our lives?  Moreover, for this to happen on the very day in which I wrote about the subject?  I suppose that some might still call it coincidence.   I'll call it coordination by the One who "worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11).  I'm sure you all have countess stories of God's working in your own lives and circumstances.  We forget too many of them so I wanted to share this with you to remind you of your own occasions of seeing God's precisely revealed faithfulness.  I also want to chronicle this latest event in my own life.  Some would say that the stars aligned just right to so bless me.  Ha!  The truth of the matter is that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit perfectly aligned to reveal the detailed involvement of God, in a matter of string trimmers and hemostats.

"The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."
(Psalm 111:2)


Weekly Memory Verse 

     The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
(John 10:10)















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