Three Lessons I Learned From My Appliances

When Wes and I got married, my maternal grandmother gave us her old microwave oven. It was a small black cube from the early eighties, not quite large enough to put a dinner plate in it. It had no buttons. To use it, you pulled the door handle to open it, put your food inside, pushed the door closed, and turned a plastic dial to start it.

Then you could leave the room to do something else, because it wasn't a powerful piece of equipment, and you had some time to kill.

We used that little microwave for thirteen years, until we moved into our current home and decided to get a new one.

Our new microwave was dazzling in comparison.

Disclaimer: These pictures are for illustration purposes only,
 and they may not actually reflect reality. (I have never in my life cooked that many carrots.)

Among its many stunning features, this microwave had a “30 seconds” button. We wondered what use that could possibly be. It didn't take us long to find out. This microwave could indeed make things warm in just half a minute. With a whole minute we could really heat things up. I thought about my paternal grandmother, who never owned a microwave. She was a widow for the last 25 years of her long life, and when she cooked, she froze her leftovers in little tin pie pans. Later, she would take a serving out and warm it in the oven for about an hour. I wondered what she would think of an appliance that could do the same job in two or three minutes.¹

I was used to doing other work while warming leftovers or cooking a frozen burrito, but since this one was so fast, it didn't seem worth it start something.

I was wrong. Thirty to sixty seconds is more time than it might seem to be. There are many things you can do in one minute or less. Here are a few ideas:

     Wipe crumbs off the countertop
     Put a few things back in the refrigerator (or wherever they should be)
     Do a little stretching
     Clean a light switch or two
     Read the scripture you have stuck on the refrigerator
     Make a phone call you've been putting off
     Pet the dog
     Declutter a drawer

I'm not saying that every second of your life should stuffed full with productive work. I am just reminding you that you might have more time than you think you have. Life is made of a lot of little minutes, and if you you use those well, you might not miss out on the big minutes. You wouldn't want to miss a magical moment, and those moments usually cannot be predicted.

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I have written before about my wonderful washer and dryer.² I really do love them. But the washing machine has a quirk I find bothersome.

It has a digital display that shows how much time is left before the load is done. A very nice feature, I thought.

But it's not very accurate. I have sometimes looked at the display to see that it has 12 minutes left until the load is done, then I come back seven minutes later to see that is says 10 minutes left.

Okay, I admit this isn't a huge problem. When I mentioned my annoyance to my husband, he said “Well, it doesn't know how much longer it will take.”

“Yes it does!” I said. “Or it should! But if it really doesn't know, it shouldn't say it does!”

I have learned to live with this issue. But the lesson is important: Don't lie to anyone ─ especially your kids ─ even about seemingly little things. Don't make up an answer or guess if you don't know. Your children (or friends or co-workers) won't lose their faith in you if admit to your non-omniscience, and they very well might enjoy finding the answer with you. But there are things we just don't know. That's what faith is about.

But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. (D&C 93:40)

I have long admired the parenting wisdom of Dr. William Sears:

"One of the best ways for teaching honesty to kids is to create a truthful home. Just as you sense when your child is lying, children will often read their parents’ untruths. If your child sees your life littered with little white lies, he learns that this is an acceptable way to avoid consequences. Don’t tell your child something is “gone” when it really isn’t just to make it easier for you to say he can’t have anymore. Sharp little eyes often see all and you haven’t fooled your child at all. You’ve just lied to him, and he’ll know that, since he knows you so well. Just say “no more now” and expect your child to accept that."

I like to trust everyone, but it doesn't take more than a couple of lies for me to stop believing in a person. Untruths are so often revealed. It's just not worth it. As Walter Scott said, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

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I am very grateful to have a working dishwasher. Our dishwasher, like many, I suppose, has a “Clean Light”─ a light that comes on when the dishes are clean. I have felt some small satisfaction seeing that message after a long day of cleaning. But as soon you open the dishwasher door, the light goes off.

This seemed to me very much like many of my weekdays. I could spend hours working toward a clean house, but as soon as the front door opened and the kids ran in from school, the “clean light” went out. Backpacks hit the table, mud streaked the floor and after-school snack crumbs flew.

I've realized now that many of the things we do every day are things we'll do again tomorrow. Some of those things are as simple and as universal as brushing your teeth or putting clothes on. But when you have young children (or teenagers), there will always be things you do over and over. And that's okay. We aren't meant to live in a perfectly sanitary environment. A little clutter and a little dirt probably won't hurt much.

I embrace the attitude Phyllis Diller showed when she said, “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.”

And I love this insightful thought: “A household has to be tended if it is to flourish and grow. Housework is never 'done' in the same sense that gardening is never done or that God's providential involvement in the world is never done. Housework and gardening and God's providence itself are exercises not in futility but in faithfulness – faithfulness to the work itself, to the people whose needs that work serves, and to the God whose own faithfulness invites our faithful response.” 
   (Margaret Kim Peterson, Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life)

Another favorite of mine:

On Judgment Day, if God should say, 
"Did you clean your house today?" 
I will say, "I did not.
I played with my kids and I forgot."
And God might say "Good for you ─
That's just what I hoped you'd do."

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These are small lessons. But I see something big in them. I see a life filled with appreciation for all things, big and small.

Be glad you have modern time-saving conveniences like these. Be grateful that you have people you love tracking dirt into the house. Be thankful to have spaces of time, short and long, that you can fill with work or service or looking out the window at the sky and the trees. Be grateful that you have truth to share, and truth still to learn.


Happy Thanksgiving!

1 To read more about my two grandmothers click here:
² To read about my washer and dryer, click here:

Cheering Words

I was curled up in bed when my husband Wes came home from work. He brought me a hurriedly-made plate of dinner and then picked up his keys.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To Joseph’s baseball game. It’s his last one.”

His last game of the season. I hadn’t gone to any of them. Surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my head, along with subsequent brain radiation and chemotherapy, had left me very weak, partially paralyzed, and somewhat confused about things. I was almost totally bedridden.

So my husband was surprised when I blurted out, “I want to go.”

“Really? Are you sure you can do it?”

I nodded, although I was not at all sure. I only felt that I should go. It might be my last chance to see Joseph play. Ever.

Wes helped me change into clean clothes and get out of bed. He supported me as I slowly walked to the car and he helped me get in. The baseball field was not far away, but it seemed to me like we were traveling to another planet.

I walked from the car toward the field, leaning on Wes all the way. A neighbor had given Joseph a ride to the game, which was more than half over when we got there. The bleachers were filled with parents, grandparents and siblings. I didn’t recognize anyone there. I thought I heard a murmuring run through the spectators as I neared, and although the bleachers were full, the crowd seemed to part as I approached. I knew I looked terrible, and I felt self-conscious as I half-crawled into an empty spot.

I looked out at the field, where ten-year-old boys like my son were dressed in their colorful uniforms. I didn’t recognize any of them, not even Joseph.

I struggled to keep my head upright and my eyes open. Suddenly, Wes nudged me. “Joseph’s up next,” he said.

I straightened up and squinted in the direction of the field. I spotted Joseph, his red hair gleaming in the setting sun. As he moved toward the plate, the crowd of people around me began to stir. It seemed like everyone was making noise now, shouting, “Go, Joseph!” and “You can do it, Joseph!” and “All right, Joseph!”

I was confused. Why was everyone cheering so loudly for Joseph? He was smaller than many of the boys, and not particularly athletically gifted. I had wondered why he even wanted to play. And now he was getting cheered on as if he were the star of the team.

The bleachers were filled with sound as Joseph picked up the bat. “Go, Joseph, go! You can do it Joseph!” I heard one voice, just behind me, call out, “Hit that ball, Joseph!” Then the voice dropped to a near-whisper as it went on, “Your mother’s here.”

And that’s when I understood. In our small town, I suppose almost everyone had heard about my health problems. The people in the bleachers hadn’t known what to say to me, but they found a way to communicate their sympathy, encouragement, and support as they cheered for a scrawny 10-year-old, clumsily swinging his bat. They weren’t cheering for Joseph, not really. They were cheering for me. 

I don’t remember whether Joseph got a hit in that game, or what the final score was. But I can still hear the sounds of cheering and the quiet words of compassion: Joseph, your mother’s here.