Tender Mercies

Our recent move to Kansas has been a struggle for me.  In Texas, I felt stable and had wonderful friends.  The things that I complained about were nothing major: the (endless) heat and being so far from family.  I have moved many times in my life.  And the actual moving part isn't so bad.  Even the time consuming process of finding new doctors, dentists, schools, grocery stores, and other necessary parts of relocating a family aren't bad, just time consuming.  But I have struggled with feeling stable and finding a new support system here.  We are renting a house.  The lease is only until May.  The owner is putting it back on the market.  We knew that going in.  So it isn't a surprise.  But it isn't a house we want to buy (There are too many updates and repairs to make it worth the price they are asking). But it worked for us as a temporary place. However,  it has made it difficult to plan farther in advance than the end of the school year.  I like knowing what we are doing or where we will be in the future.  But it's hard to plan when we don't know for sure when/if we'll have to move. 

Since it's a rental house, there are some minor problems with the house that are inconvenient.  The appliances are old (early 90's) and inefficient.  And this is the point of today's story.  Sometime in December we had friends over to make hamburgers.  It was too cold to grill, so we broiled them in the oven.  Unfortunately, the grease from the burgers spilled everywhere in the oven.  Consequently, every time we cook anything in the oven on high heat, it starts smoking.  Then the smoke alarms in the house go off.  Not too much of a problem, more a nuisance.  I have been meaning to clean the oven so that it doesn't smoke anymore.  So today was the day.  I wiped out as much of the grease as I could and then turned on the self cleaning feature on the oven.  After about 20 minutes, the smoke alarms started going off.  I opened all the doors in the house to let out the heat.  I turned to oven light on to make sure it was okay.  But two minutes later I looked in again to check and THE OVEN WAS ON FIRE INSIDE!!!!

I turned off the cleaning cycle as fast as I could.  Waited for a few seconds.  The fire kept burning!!!  AAAHHHHH!!!  I used to keep a fire extinguisher in our kitchen at our old house.  But it was one of the things the packers wouldn't move when we left Texas - so I left it there.  And I forgot to buy a new one.  So I thought I would open the door and just put the fire out another way (flour, a towel, something.) But the door was still locked!  One of the safety features for self cleaning ovens is staying locked until the temperature returns to normal.  But the fire was still burning!  That was where I panicked.  How was I going to get that fire out without burning up the whole wall?  By the time the fire was that far, it would be too late for me to do anything.  Then the whole house would burn down.  All this was going through my head in aobut 2 seconds.

Fortunately, the fire went out on it's own.  Such a tender mercy.  I know that Heavenly Father was watching over me.  Once it went out, and I was pretty sure it would stay out, I started crying and called Nate. 

The fire was one of those 'last straw' moments.  It's been hard to feel so transient.  If it were a house we owned, I would probably just fix the things that bother me.  And I wouldn't worry.  But renting short term doesn't make it worth the work. 

          

Anyway, everything is fine now.  Luckily, it is an unseasonably warm day; so it is rather nice to have all the windows and doors open to air out the house.  And the fire didn't rage out of control.  (Although, since it is still locked, I can't open up the oven to see if it did any damage inside).  I will be fine.  And I know that everything will work out eventually.  It's just the not knowing when exactly that is hard for me.  But, eventually, things work out.  They always do.  In the mean time, it is a nice day.