Finding Satisfaction
The morning wasn’t going well. It always comes down to feeling rushed, and then everything seems to unravel from there. It was the first day back to school for my kids, and back to work for my husband after a long break. For some reason vacations zap me of some brain cells. It’s like I forgot how to do daily life and routines. It was only two weeks off, but it was enough to throw me for a loop that morning.
I ran upstairs to blow dry my hair and put on some makeup. I have this thing, a mantra of sorts. If I look good, I’ll do good. It sounds dumb, and a little vain, but I just function better when I feel better about myself. Makeup and hair care makes me feel good about myself. So back to the blow dryer…..yeah, well, it suddenly didn’t work. Weird, but no problem, I thought, I’ll put on my makeup first. Hmm, lighted makeup mirror doesn’t work. I yelled downstairs to my daughter who was enjoying a nice breakfast while she waited for me to drive her to school. And when I say nice, it might have possibly been a Pop-tart. The details are fuzzy.
Do you have electricity in your bathroom?
No, I had to straighten my hair in my room.
This is not good. And couldn’t you have let me know this?
The lights worked fine, but every outlet I tried in our bathroom and bedroom didn’t. I ended up blow drying my hair in the hallway. The hallway. I wondered the same thing. Why is there an outlet in the hallway?
Because I have a husband who has traveled for work our whole married life, which will be 20 years in August, I have become somewhat familiar with household maintenance. I know a thing or two about sprinkler systems, leaky faucets, electric garage door malfunctions, breaker boxes, snow blowers, and GFI’s. The lights were working, so I knew this was a GFI issue and it needed to be reset. Right? So simple, yet so not.
Every house we have lived in, the GFI reset buttons are attached to outlets, but not in this house. Oh no, that would have been too easy. In this house, they are located in the breaker box on the side of the house. Thankfully it was a bright and sunny morning because fiddling with a breaker box in the dark, outside, well too many scary movie plots happen in dark corners of the yard.
It took several minutes for me to figure out how to even open the box itself, but I did. My frustration level, by this point, was high. I pulled out my phone and called Izzy, who was still enjoying her Pop-tart and reading Snap Chat stories. (Insert eye roll here.) I was in a panic state, and she was calm, relaxed, and eating.
Hey Mom, she answered.
Look, I hate to interrupt your nice little breakfast, but you might have noticed I’m running around the house and yard with half wet hair and no makeup, and we need to leave the house in 10 minutes. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HELP ME?!?!?
Yes Mom. Gosh. What’s wrong?
Go upstairs and tell me when my blow dryer starts working. I have to figure out what’s going on.
There were five GFI reset buttons. They weren’t labeled very well. How am I supposed to know what is bedroom #1 and bathroom #3? And one was labeled “smokies.” Seriously. I decided to reset all of them.
Is it working, Izzy?
No.
Are you sure?
I know how to tell if a blow dryer is working, Mom.
Do you now? Do you really?
Ugh. This day is killing me, and it’s only 8 a.m.
Time was ticking, and I needed to get my girl to school. I took a few deep breaths and walked away from the breaker box. The whole drive, to and from the school, I spent trying to figure out the problem. I lost precious moments of one on one time with that sweet girl of mine, all because of a silly outlet not working.
I find it ironic that all morning, and most of that day, I spent searching for a power source. I tried resetting those GFI’s like five times, and still could not get power to the outlets. I yelled at my daughter out of frustration. I texted my husband several times, with pictures of outlets and breaker boxes, and they weren’t very kind texts.
As it turned out, there is a GFI attached to an outlet inside the house. It’s located in Maddie’s bathroom. I never even thought to look there. Once I found it and reset it, everything worked. Instantly. One click of a button, and problem solved.
Did you catch it? Did you catch the part about I never even thought to look there? Tears well in my eyes as I write this. So often I miss it. So often I miss plugging into THE power source. So often I make first things first that should be last on the list. So often I look everywhere else, but not the one place I need to.
And then, this:
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. 17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands. Psalm 90:14, 17
Satisfy. I love that word. I wonder if the Psalmist wants us to realize that being satisfied; nothing more, nothing less, just enough, means we can experience joy from God’s unfailing love every single day? The problems will come. They will come daily. That is a promise too. But joy? Sometimes that’s a little harder to find. Sometimes it’s a choice. God is waiting, though, with unfailing love, to have us fall into His arms and allow Him to order our days and establish the work of our hands.
Satisfaction. Joy. Just enough for today.
