We have been without heat for the last three days.
The culprit is a broken exhaust fan. It happened to quit working on the day following the historic October nor’easter that hit New England.
This is what the aftermath of that storm looked like in our neck of the woods:
As you can imagine, it was a tad chilly.
To complicate matters further, there were enormous power outages, which included the company in Massachusetts that carried the replacement exhaust fan.
We were originally told that all would be fixed by Monday.
So, we bundled up in several layers of clothes, fired up the space heaters, and slept beneath a million blankets.
By Monday afternoon, we received news that now it would be fixed on Tuesday.
I immediately placed a call to my brother, who works for the company that runs the inns in our charming New England town and he was able to get us a room at one of them for the night.
As I packed, I realized how far I have come. If this had happened several years ago, I’m sorry to say that I would have been decidedly unhappy at being inconvenienced and would have loudly vocalized my displeasure to anyone willing to listen. I would have only focused on the negative..
Not so today.
The storm that my family and I lived through over the past couple of years has radically realigned my perspective and my priorities. I no longer take anything in my life for granted.
I have learned to count, one by glorious one, one thousand gifts from the hand of my Heavenly Father.
Whatever the situation, I now ask, “What blessings can I find here?”
I always find them—even though some circumstances require a bit more digging— because I serve a very good God who can be found in the midst. He always speaks.
The blessings I found in this situation were many:
*We were given the gift of more time to be with Doug, as he usually goes to Vermont on Sunday afternoons for another work week
*It reminded me to give thanks for the little things that are easy to take for granted, such as electricity, running water, a washing machine, a dryer, and heat
*…laughter with my family, as we all sought to find the joy in the midst
*Doug having the chance to drive the kids to school and listen to all the stories of high school life and plans for the day ahead
*…spending Halloween night in a local Mexican restaurant enjoying seeing kids dressed up in costumes…and listening to the little boy behind us inexplicably say, “Hi fork!” over and over again 🙂
*…being given the chance to stay practically for free in a luxury hotel for the night, wrapped in the warmth from the fireplace
*…waking up to this view:
This afternoon at 4:00, the fan was fixed and blessed heat poured back into the house. Happiness reigned. 🙂
Celebrate the little things today.
Power Of A Moment 
I just love celebrating little things in life. We were without power for almost 5 days in Feb., 2009 and I couldn’t leave because I had Rico, Jan and Linda came over and with a propane heater and propane hotplate we hunkered down. It was a “steamy” 50 degree in here which was better than the 33 degrees at their house. We had many offers to go to family and friends but I couldn’t leave Rico and had no small cage to transport him. I told Jan and Linda that they didn’t have to stay because I couldn’t leave. They refused to go without me. So we hung in there together and shared hot soup, blankets,
complaints, and as always, laughter. We still laugh at how good the canned mushroom soup tasted, how many blankets we had wrapped around us, and hhow we looked on the fourth day when we made a candle-run to the local ddollar store. How blessed I felt to have these two wonderful people with me. So, the lesson–even in the most uncomfortable situations, there are so many blessings to found.
Beautifully said, Elaine! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Hi Susan
This again came at a time I need a little reminder to count my blessings. My husband had a Dr.s appointment on Friday that was very discouraging.
Just as I start to get dicouraged he already had blessing in place.#1 my mom
happen to be visiting .(God planned) She is always encouraging.
#2 Your blog on counting your blessing. #3 Many questions answered for Bud
about disablity and etc.#4 His Kidney Dr. gave him the o.k. to go ahead with Hip Surgery and many many more blessing. Thank your for using the gift God has blessed you with to encourage many of us…. To GOD BE THE GLORY!!!
Thank you so much for sharing Nancy! I loved hearing about your praises and God’s faithfulness! Love you! 🙂
Since reading Ann’s book (Can’t remember how to spell her last name.), I have been counting blessings daily. We just came through 5 plus days of no power. (Lost it Saturday, got it back yesterday around noon.)
One of the biggest blessings was spending time as a family playing games instead of doing our own things or being glued to the TV. Other wonderful blessings were the fact that we had heat (wood stove), the small generator our son-in-law got for us a couple years ago kept our fridges going so we didn’t lose our food, and we live on a large pond where we could get buckets of water for flushing…
I don’t care to repeat the experience any time soon! But I know we had it far better than some!
I plan to share this post! Once done, I plan to go enjoy the luxury of a hot shower. 🙂
Thanks for sharing Margaret! Time with family is so precious…glad you were able to find the blessings in such a hardship! 🙂