Author Steven Lake
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| God's Blessings in Odd Places Saturday, June 7th, 2014 1:04pm Keywords: (None) |
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| I'm not one who normally brags about stuff, but one of the things I absolutely love is auctions. There's a bit of bargain mania mixed with the thrill of the hunt. Well, in today's case I got both. Plus no two auctions are the same, so you never know what you will come up with. Anyhow, we showed up at the auction, which was an estate sale out in the country, and began looking around. We didn't see anything at first that was a "must have" (I live pretty light, as I've found I don't need a lot of things.) so dad and I decided to orbit. To "orbit" in auctioneering terms means to be nearby and possibly wander the auction, listening to what is going on, but not be directly involved in the main line of bidding. I've snagged some rather interesting deals that way, and came across stuff that I didn't catch in my first couple passes over the tables. Mostly because I didn't know what the item was until the auctioneer said something. Anyhow, today we decided to orbit. In the process my dad came away with a bunch of things that were nothing I was interested in, but they were things he could use. I in turn was orbiting and heard one of the auctioneer's helpers say, "I have a canner." I immediately perked up. The reason I did is because one of the things I had in the back of my mind was that we needed another 8qt canner to replace the old 8qt we have that has pretty much given up the ghost. To give you an idea of how old it is, I inherited it from my mom who bought it before I was born, so it's got over 42 years of use on it, and had its handles replaced at least once. So it's got issues with leaking, gasket blowouts, etc, meaning we either replaced it soon, or we weren't gonna have a small load canner anymore. Fast forward to today. Upon hearing about the canner I ask, "What brand?" "Mirro, and it's brand new." I just about blew a gasket with excitement. I jumped on that bid like lightning. Oddly though, someone else came after me and then it was on. Back and forth, back and forth. But what the other guy didn't realize was, I knew the retail price for a Mirro of that size, and was willing to go up to 2/3rds retail since it was brand new, never used. Heck, the jiggler (which I love Mirro canners with the older jigglers on them rather than the pressure poppers) was still in the original envelope, and there was ZERO usage markings on it. Anyhow, the bidding went back and forth, back and forth, and I'm figuring, "Good grief, have I gotta take this all the way?" Thankfully, no. Eventually he backed out and I got my new canner. So how does that go with the title of this post? Because to me that canner is a blessing. I needed it, and God provided it, and at a price I liked, which was about 1/4 what it would cost retail. :) God did the same with a camp stove I needed as well. So yes, it was a blessing from God and in an odd place. I just found it odd because I knew I needed those, and hadn't really been thinking about them as they were in the back of my mind, and also far enough back that I wasn't even thinking about them that morning, and then there, out of the clear blue, God hands me a double blessing that satisfied two needs. To say I'm very happy is an understatement. Now, do we serve a great and awesome God or what? :D |
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