Why I'm thankful My Fridge Stopped Working!

Last Friday, I opened my fridge and poured the kids some milk.  The milk wasn't extremely cold, but I really didn't think anything about it.  Then I opened my freezer, and everything was soft.  And drippy.  And melty.  OH NO.  Almost nothing can strike fear into my heart like a faulty freezer.  We grow and freeze a lot of our own food, and our two deep freezers are full of produce, meats, and milk, which we freeze for soap.  So, a freezer that is on the fritz means wasted money and a lot of extra work.  Luckily, this was just the freezer above my fridge, so it contained less exciting (and less expensive) items like ice packs, ice, shredded cheese, and a couple unidentified objects I had stuck in a Ziploc bag, left unlabeled (because “I’ll remember what these are”) and thrown in the back of the freezer.  The fridge however was full of milk for feeding baby goats, vegetables, condiments, butter, eggs—things I definitely did not want to throw away. 

BUT, luckily, THANKFULLY, we have an extra fridge in the garage.  We bought it a couple years ago to store extra milk in.  Currently, this fridge was empty.  I had debated turning it off a while ago because we haven’t used it as much in the past few months, but again, thankfully, we had not.  So the kids and I began to transfer all of the salvageable stuff from our kitchen fridge to the garage fridge.  Unfortunately, this fridge was, as I have stated in the garage.  Because it’s a pretty small garage, we have only parked a car in there maybe once, and before we acquired a garden tiller, 4 tricycles, 2 bicycles, a stroller, a meat smoker, and a myriad of other random things that find their way to a garage.  I would show you a picture, except it’s a little embarrassing and a lot like hoarders, but trying to push the door open that connects the laundry room to the garage was slightly difficult.  I did get a little space cleared, but the door still didn't open all the way, which made things uncomfortable when trying to carry three large jars of milk to the kitchen.  So for three days, every time I needed something from the fridge (which seemed like every five minutes), I began the task of pushing open the garage door, trying to avoid stepping on some spare screwdrivers, and carrying whatever I needed back to the kitchen without dropping anything or hurting myself. 

Yesterday, my kind husband had mercy on me or he got tired of my complaining, the latter is more likely, and together we cleared the garage, moved the dead fridge out of the kitchen and moved the cold, working fridge into the kitchen.  Also, for a while we've considered getting an old chest freezer and using it for feed storage at the barn.  So we took the old fridge, turned on its side, and it is now protecting rabbit/dog/goat feed from marauding mice and raccoons.  A win-win!! 

So, no I’m not thankful my fridge stopped working.  I’m thankful the fridge stopped working.  We had a spare one and we needed a broken one!  I am so thankful that even though God doesn’t protect us from all the bad and annoying things that can happen in life, He does watch over us and provides for us in times of need and inconvenience.  I’m so thankful for our spare fridge and the fact that it still works.  I’m so thankful we didn't have to buy a new fridge.  (It took me 2.5 seconds of looking on Sears.com to realize new refrigerators cost more than what we paid for our old mini-van!)  Imagine if my dryer had stopped working, or my deep freezer, or the computer?  I don’t have a spare one of those laying around, but on second thought, it wouldn't surprise me if I found one buried under the junk in the garage!