I have the following prayer posted on my refrigerator.

Dear Lord

Bless me and enlarge my life, put your hand upon me, keep me from evil, may I cause no pain.

I got it from a book I gave Jennifer some years ago.  It’s called The Prayer of Jabez.  I once knew who he was, but can’t remember now.

I pray this prayer one or more times a day when I’m home because I open the refrigerator quite often.  (For health food only)  Anyway, when I pray for God to bless and enlarge my life and put His hand on me, I always want to think it will be as I see fit, when, in fact, it’s not that way at all.

I’ve been without power for some time because the sun hasn’t been out and my generator doesn’t work.  I prayed and prayed and the only thing that happened is that friends invited me to their homes for dinner and company, an 80 year old lady washed and folded my close, I learned to read for long hours without watching TV, and after I’d given up on finding the solution to my generator problems, ran into the wife of a retired Mechanic at the library (where I go to use the Internet and my computer), who told her husband of my fate.  He stopped by while I was at dinner with friends and left a note that he’d be happy to give me free help.

See, God answers prayers in strange ways.  I still don’t have the generator running and my solar panels still don’t track the sun, but look at all the other wonderful things that have happened.

Hank, the mechanic came over yesterday in a light rain to check the problem.  He figured he’d have to check the valves and ran home to get his tools and bring a generator for me to pump water so I could shower and do all the other things we take water for granted for.  I ran it for 3.5 hours until the water was overflowing in my 1750 gallon tank.  It must have been almost empty. (I’d been heating water on the stove and taking sponge baths to conserve water.)  The sun finally came out and I had energy to read by last night.

Hank found the exhaust valve was badly burned and didn’t seat properly and I didn’t have any compression.  I happened to be coming to Redding today for a doctor’s appointment (I”m at the Redding Library now) so took the head and valves in to be ground.  They had them done in two hours and all it cost was $40.  I took my new skis in to get tuned up and fitted to my boots, and it is only costing me $27.  They told me how to fix the small bit of damage to the top of the skis and told me the skiis and boots were the top of the line.  Costco took my broken Canon Camera back and gave me a credit with which I got a new one.

Anyway, I spent the day thanking God for all that I learned.  “God does work in mysterious ways.”

I’m sure how much more I have to learn and I’m not sure I’m ready for it, but hopefully, I’ve had enough testing for the time being and things are going to be golden.