Before our first baby, Hubby remodeled our kitchen to accommodate a stacked washing machine and dryer. In that era before disposable diapers, he knew we would need one.
When the infant woke me in the middle of the night, I transferred clean clothes from washer to dryer and shoved dirty clothes into the washing machine. In the morning I had a heap of clean diapers, towels and clothes to fold and begin the cycle all over again.
During the day, the washing machine ran as I baked cookies, preserved fruits and made meals. Keeping the family in clean clothes kept both machines busy until the day the washer quit. Hubby discussed repair ideas with a mechanic before he took the machine apart. He fixed the problem, but he could not put all the pieces back together. The counter weight at the front of the machine had to fit precisely or it would not spin or allow door closure.
As he repaired, I stepped around tools on the kitchen floor to make meals, prepare blueberries for the freezer, entertain children and prepare supper. Come nightfall, I read the children books and tucked them in for the night.
Still, Hubby had not finished fixing that machine. He knew what to do, he just could not pop the front precisely back into place. I wandered off to bed until he called, “would you please hold this part in place for me?”
I held. He tried and tried and tried. It would not fit. Between attempts, I filled freezer bags with blueberries and carried them to the freezer in the basement. After one trip, I sat on the steps, tired, longing to sleep and to leave fixing that machine to another day. Hubby’s obsessive mind would not let him sleep. As I slumped on the step, I sent a plea to heaven, “Lord, please fix that machine, put the pieces together for him.”
“Okay, I am ready to try it again,” he called.
I wearily stood up and went to the kitchen. I held the piece exactly as I had before. It slipped perfectly into place. My feet aimed for the bedroom until he said, “Wait, I need to take it apart. I need to do one more thing.”
He quickly loosened it, took it apart and made the adjustment. I held the piece in place. It slipped neatly into place again. We were done!
I collapsed into bed. He followed shortly thereafter. A few hours later, I woke up and began sorting a backlog of clothes to put in the washing machine.
Three or four days later, as I prepared supper beside the repaired machine, Hubby stopped, looked thoughtfully at the machine and asked, “Did you pray about fixing that machine?
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“Because nothing had worked and then we put it together twice without any problem.”
I had forgotten this long ago answer to prayer until he recently recalled the event while talking about prayer. He has often mentioned praying for wisdom for problems at work. I thought of that when I recently read 2 Chronicles 16:8 when prophet Hanani confronts King Asa for making a treaty to avoid war. Hanani said, “When you relied on the Lord, He delivered them into your hand.”
Recalling that night, Hubby realized he had not sought providential help and yet something changed. It was not a coincidence. It was God. That incident and many others impacted both our jobs for many years.