Blessings in the Midsts of Trials

I do have a few blog posts to catch up on but I had a learning experience last night that i would feel really ungrateful if I did not blog about it.

I decided to make chocolate chip cookies last night right about the time Andrew and Ally were going to bed. I got the first two batches cooked with no problem. I put the second batch in the oven, set my portable timer and went downstairs to spend some time with Jim. A little while later Ally came panicked downstairs. She said, "Mom I smelled something funny so I went into the kitchen to see and there's smoke coming out of the oven." I quickly looked at my timer, yep, I still had over two minutes before the cookies were to be done. I ran upstairs and sure enough my kitchen was full of smoke. The digital screen on my oven was unreadable so I quickly hit the off button. The screen then said 'clean, cool.' What?!? Clean? How did that happen? I was frantically racking my brain, could I have accidentally turned the clean on? I was absolutely sick! The oven stunk really bad and the top of the oven was quickly turning from the pretty white it was meant to be to a disgusting burnt brown. As Jim and I hurried to open windows, get a fan going, etc. we realized there was no way I could have accidentally turned on the clean cycle, the oven had to have done it itself, which can only mean one thing, the oven is dying.

My first thought, seriously? Can the timing be any worse? I just had to replace my washer and dryer and now my oven? All before Christmas? Why? Just as quickly as these thoughts came to me, my thinking changed! I quickly realized how grateful I was that Ally was still awake and smelled that 'funny smell' and came to tell me and Jim right away. I realized that since there were still cookies on a metal cookie sheet in the oven when it switched to clean mode a fire could have started which would have been A LOT worse! Everyone in my family was safe and that's the most important thing. As I look back over the last few months I realize there were blessings in disguise that I didn't truly realize until now. Like the fact we decided to get a new barbecue grill for my birthday. And I was able to replace my crockpot when it died. And that after only using said crockpot once and breaking the bowl while cleaning it (yes I am brilliant) my next door neighbor had a bowl she was getting rid of that fit mine perfectly and she was willing to give it to me for free. Another blessing is that even though we had to replace our washer and dryer, and right before Christmas, the timing was actually good because we got a good deal with the Black Friday sales. I have learned that if you look hard enough, and yes sometimes you have to look really hard, we can find blessings in everything, including our trials. I'm so thankful we were blessed in the midst of this trial.

So for now, our oven is on the side of our house and while we are looking for a new oven (which are expensive, by the way) we will be eating a lot of cold food, crockpot meals and using my grill we were blessed to get. The good news is that even though it still stinks really bad, I still have a kitchen to prepare these meals in. I'm so thankful my Heavenly Father is watching out for me and my little family and this situation wasn't any worse than it was. I'm also grateful for lessons learned during our trials.