In October our washing machine decided it no longer wanted to work. It would “stop” mid-cycle and make this incessant beeping noise for about 30 seconds and then would just quit. If you messed with it long enough, it would ultimately start again, but personally, I didn’t think I had time to stand by the washer so that I could hit a button every 3 minutes. It was very frustrating.
I’m rather spoiled when it comes to having immediate access to washing my clothes, so when the washing machine broke the first time, I insisted we needed a new one.
Scott, being the more frugal of the two of us, though he would be able to “fix it.”
He did some research on YouTube and watched multiple tutorials on how to fix our particular brand name washing machine.
I will confess, after a few weeks of taking it apart, digging out hair ties and bobby pins, then restarting it again, the machine began working again. Sometimes it would stop mid-cycle and you’d have to restart it once, but all in all, the problem seemed to be solved.
Until . . .
The last weekend in November Scott was out of town and I had a significant amount of laundry that needed attention. Of course, that’s when the machine decided to stop working again . . . COMPLETELY!
I tried all of Scott’s tricks. I unplugged it, restarted it, unhooked hoses and then hooked them back, tried to reset the cycle . . . .you name it, I tried it. NOTHING worked. Until Scott came home again and then magically it started working again. He continued to insist that we did not need a new washer.
I emphatically explained that I could not wait til he could share his “magic touch” in order to do laundry. I began sending him stats on the average life of washing machines. I became relentless because the thing was falling apart.
After it FINALLY broke completely when he was trying to use it, he consented.
A friend was kind enough to give us some counsel (and a coupon) and away we went to purchase a new machine.
The kicker? The model we needed was apparently not in the store or any warehouse, so it ended up taking 3 weeks before the machine would be ready to inhabit our home.
Sometimes with our lives, we wait too long before we start to fix things. We allow things to get so broken that we think it is beyond our capability to “fix it.”
Father Richard Rohr says, “The word change normally refers to new beginnings. But transformation more often happens not when something new begins but when something old falls apart. The pain of something old falling apart—disruption and chaos—invites the soul to listen at a deeper level. It invites and sometimes forces the soul to go to a new place because the old place is not working anymore.”
Maybe we each have something in our lives that needs transforming.
Where is the new place in our souls we can explore because the old place is not worth trying to fix because it simply isn’t working anymore?
Ephesians 4:22
22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;
24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.