Mice and Mold

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GRATITUESDAY

Hosted by Laura @ Heavenly Homemakers

For this Gratituesday, I am thankful for mice and mold. Yes, I know. It sounds strange, but, it's true!

Each year when school begins, I start cleaning out closets and cabinets that have been neglected for many months. This year my goal was to clean out our pantry. It really hadn't been too long since I had cleaned it out because we had a mouse in there as I mentioned here. But, after cleaning it out then, I didn't have the time to go through and organize it like I should have, so the first full week of school was the designated time to take on that task.

Our pantry closet was next to a shower and in the laundry room. It sounds strange to a lot of people to have a shower in the laundry room, but not to me because two houses I grew up in had showers in the laundry rooms. I think it's a "farmer" thing...so they can come in and take of their dirty clothes and shower there...not having to go through the house. Anyway, we knew the shower had some leaks and my husband had recently sealed it, but apparently, it didn't work.

While cleaning out the pantry I found a few mouse droppings, which was very un-nerving since we never caught the mouse before and hadn't seen any trace of one being around. But, I figured they were just some that I had missed before (or at least I hoped so!). The mouse droppings were bad enough, but then, as I was taking out boxes of snacks from the pantry, I found a box of Cheez-Its STUCK to the wall against the shower wall. It was MOLDED to it!! YUCK!! Well, after my inital shock, I became angry and then I resorted to tears. Yep. I just stood there and cried for a minute. Then, realizing I had an even bigger task before me and realizing it wasn't going to clean up by itself, I dried up the tears and began throwing boxes and boxes of food away. For someone who doesn't like to waste, this was very hard, but extremely necessary.

So, this picture shows why I can be grateful for mice and mold. This picture is my NEW PANTRY, except it's not yet framed and doesn't have a door/curtain, yet. This new pantry was the leaky shower! My husband worked for two weeks after work and on weekends tearing out the old shower and making this new, larger pantry for me. I'm sooooooo excited! The old pantry, which is actually to the left, is a closet for the vacuum, brooms, mops, tablecloths, my husband's running gear, etc. Eventually the whole laundry room is going to be part of the kitchen and I'll have a new laundry room, but that will have to wait for a while.

I had wanted a bigger pantry, but wasn't expecting the mold problem to become the reason I got one. Something bad ended up being something good. This is a minor example of situations that happen in our lives all of the time. Something bad happens, but later on something good comes of the bad thing.

Thinking of this in a spiritual sense, we don't see the big picture that God sees, so sometimes it's hard to understand why bad things happen. It's sometimes hard not to become discouraged. In the Bible there are several examples of something bad turning into something good. One of those examples is Joseph. Joseph was sold by his brothers and later they were sorry for what they had done. But, look at what Joseph says in Genesis 50:20. "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
The brothers meant to harm Joseph by getting rid of him because of their jealousy, but God's big picture of "why" it happened was so that Joseph could save the lives of many people.

In reality, mice problems and mold problems aren't that big of a deal, but at the time on that Monday morning, they were to me. But, something good came from that problem. You may be facing some problem right now...maybe a big problem or maybe a little problem. You and I can have faith that God sees and knows the big picture, even when we don't understand. Someday we may find out what that big picture is, but it's possible that we may never know for sure. We can put our faith, hope, and trust in God because He is the only one who can truly give us the strength we need to get through the problems in life.