Bless This Mess!

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I love my pellet stove.  With a minimum of fuss and bother, I can enjoy a lively fire in my living room and reduce my use of propane dramatically.  (I live near Summit Lake, so pellet/wood stoves and propane tanks are the way of life...)  Once a week or so, I get to clean my pellet stove--which actually is a pretty easy thing to do.  The ash created by the pellets is minimal compared to wood stoves--just a very fine, gray ash.  With my vacuum cleaner, I can suck up it all up and throw it away.  

 Except when things don't exactly go as planned...
With my vacuum cleaner full of pellet stove ash (very fine, gray ash), I endeavored to remove the vacuum cleaner bag and throw it away.  Halfway through removing the bag...well, all I can say is that it exploded.  Popped.  Boom!  Very fine, grey ash everywhere:  in the living room, in the dining room, in the kitchen, in my clothing and all over the dog.  Bo (the white, fluffy dog) now has grey highlights in his fur. 😀

 Did I mention that I hate house cleaning??  I work very hard to ignore rooms in my house that are crying out for attention from a cleaning product and sponge.  Luckily, I live alone and the dog really doesn't care whether or not I vacuum or dust or scrub. Let's just say that I am now motivated to clean house!  I got the worst of it...I'll do more detail later.  

 In the midst of being exasperated by my ash explosion, I realized how humorous the situation was.  Especially when Bo trotted right through the ash, leaving little doggy footprints all over the house.  While we are in this weird time of "social distancing" and mixed messages from our government...we may shy away from laughter and fun.  But humor is essential in times such as these!  Laughter is a remedy that is always available to us.  May we discover humor in the weird and odd things that now make up our days.  May we share a laugh (or at least a chortle) with those we love.  And may we be open to the joy that God offers us--no matter what the circumstances.

 Here's a bit of humor for you--I received it from a friend in the Park Service...

If you have difficulty reading this...the left column says "WRONG" and the right hand column says "RIGHT" until the final frame, which says:  "Good Luck" and "Shouldn't Have Been Waving".  Just a little humor...
















Prayer Requests:  for Ruby Warren, Connie Warren's mother-in-law, who is nearing the end of her life--and for Connie and her family;  for Jordan Haley, Jen Gaddis, Jan Gardner, Tye Sprague and all the medical staff facing this crisis head-on; for Chris Ludington and all the EMS and emergency responders

 Please continue to send me your prayer requests so we can all support each other by joining ourselves together in prayer.

 I WILL ALSO GLADLY ACCEPT ANY HUMOR YOU WANT TO SEND MY WAY!!!

WHO KNEW THAT WHEN WE MOVED OUR CLOCKS FORWARD WE ENTERED THE TWILIGHT ZONE?
Peace and all good,
Pastor Jean


















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