Odyssey – our weekend God journey

When we were being shown this house to see if we wanted to rent it, the landlord said, “The last renters left this fridge, so we thought we would leave it for you. But we aren’t responsible for it.” AKA, here’s a free fridge. If it breaks, I won’t fix it.

This is was and exactly what we needed. Moving is expensive and not having to buy a fridge was music to my ears. It was smaller than the fridges at my parents house. And after 4 months of 3 roommates filling it, we were starting to think about getting a freezer or something for the garage for some extra space. But we hadn’t seriously looked because, well, that’s not priority or emergency. Anyway, we’ve been blessed by the fridge and by Jesus providing for us.

Also in that tour, we asked the landlord if we could landscape or put a garden in the back yard. He did a sweeping motion with his arms that said, “It’s all yours.” Since then, my roommate and I had been dream discussing what a garden in the back would look like. What we would plant. How pretty it would be. Last Wednesday, my roommate and I were in a zoom call for our weekly Bible study and another woman was talking about how’s she’s transforming her backyard into a new oasis complete with self-watering garden beds that she built herself! Major talent. She was telling us the tale of how she filled them up this dirt this week and I ask, “How did you get all the dirt?” She explains that she has a truck and it took multiple loads to get enough dirt.

We hang up the call and my roommates turns to me, “We need to seriously talk about the garden. Do we want it?” Of course we want it. So, we start looking up flower/garden beds on Facebook marketplace. We find a nice simple and affordable one, 3ft x 6ft. The perfect size for our budget. We pause for a moment to wonder how we’ll get it home, but ensure ourselves, “we’ll make it fit.” And our Saturday plans are made. We’re going to start the morning by driving an hour away to pick up the bed, go get dirt and plants, and make a lovely garden. The perfect weekend job.

But then Friday happens. My roommates, who don’t particularly like cold cold food are sitting in their various locations around the house when I come out of my room to get a drink of water. I keep my water bottle in the fridge because I DO like cold cold things. I take a drink and think, “Did these guys turn down the fridge again?” My water was only semi-chilled. I look at the button to turn the fridge back up and the lights aren’t working. I push and push and hold and hold and push and nothing happens. The lights don’t work. “Is the fridge broken?” I open the freezer, the hotdogs are squishy. “Roommate, I think the fridge is broken.” Panic. We call our dads. One says, “That sucks.” Another says, “That really sucks.” We get our other roommate.

“Did you happen to flip a switch in the fridge? Because it’s not cold.”

“I flipped no switch. What switch could I flip?”

“I don’t know! The one that makes it not work. Just reflip the switch and we’ll be good.”

But there was no switch and the fridge was thawing and the ice cream was melting.

Back to Facebook marketplace. I find two fridges. One is immaculate – two doors, lower freezer, large, newish, 2-year warranty with free delivery. All for only $650. Then there’s another one, $300, similar to the one we currently have, except this one works. I send them both messages and the $300 fridge owner responds. She can’t help deliver it, but we can pick it up today. I ask my dad his opinion again and he’s helpful this time, ha. Given me advice on average costs of fridges and telling me which one is a good deal. And it’s the $650 fridge. But that man never responds to my messages. And the food is thawing. And then the lady drops the price down to $275. My roommates and I agree to split the cost, but how will we get it to the house? Our Bible study friend! She has a truck! Our other Bible study friend, she probably has a dolly! I text them both. They’re the best, so naturally they agree to let us borrow them. We leave the house on a mad race to get the truck, the dolly the fridge and make it back home before my 7 o’clock meeting.

We make it to the lady’s house and stand next to the fridge and that’s when I realize that 60in is actually not very tall. Like, I knew that, but it didn’t click til I was standing next to it. But, we at Sundrop Cottage don’t discriminate based on height. So, we loaded her up and head home. On the way, my roommates says, “I wonder if we can borrow this truck until tomorrow to get the flower bed.” So, she sends our friend a text and she’s gracious and says, “No problem.” We got the fridge home, and I still had 9 min left before my meeting!

Though this fridge is around 6in shorter than our last fridge, it still fits everything in with only one casualty. The ice cream. RIP. We’re all sitting around the living room and we’re happy that we saved the $250 worth of food in the fridge with a $275 fridge. We basically came out even. And God is good. But, we probably do need to get something for the garage now because we were already struggling with space in the last fridge. And then the roommate who grew up around here gets a text from a friend. She says that she has a fridge that is just sitting in her garage since she moved into this new house and will sell it to us for $100. So we ask, “How tall is it?” Not only is is taller and wider than our first fridge, but it’s better in every way. It has an ice maker. It has a side freezer. It’s newer. And it will fit perfectly in the space available to us for a fridge. Sold!

Saturday, we wake up early and head to the store for dirt and flowers. We take the truck to get the flower bed and bring it all home and make the cutest little garden.

We get cleaned up and head to get the 2nd fridge in two days. It fits perfectly in the truck. We bring it home, clean it up, fill it up and move the magnets – for the second time this weekend. Then, we move the short fridge to the garage. We make cookies for our truck friend and return all our borrowed items.

Guys, we got 2 fridges for $375. That’s cheaper than half the cost of a new fridge. It’s almost half the cost of the $650 fridge from the guy that never responded. We have so much space. We got a truck for a fridge and we were able to use it for a flower bed that most definitely would not have fit in our cars. We have friends who have everything we needed for these projects and we learned about it a few days before we needed it. We got an ice maker that just happens to have a remarkable fridge attached. We got SO MUCH ICE CREAM STORAGE! We were stopped from buying a single fridge that would cost twice as much and be half the size of the ones we have now. We were able to save the food that we just bought. And we did it all with happy spirits. It was a lovely whirlwind of what adventure do you have next for us, Jesus? And now we get to use a light stick. (Which is literally a stick we picked up out of the yard that we use to turn the kitchen light off because the fridge is so close to the door frame, we can’t get our fingers in there to turn it off. Which we might start calling a wand and saying “Lumos” when we want the lights on.)

This is long, but the point is, Jesus took care of us. In every way. In E.VER.Y. Way. The fridge. The garden. The fridge. Our spirits. The joy. Our friends. All of it. And it’s just too good of a story not to share.