Wednesday, June 17, 2009

It's a Miracle

Tough financial times come and go for most families. The creativity that facilitates getting through those times, often require outside of the box thinking and risk taking.
Growing up as one of six children, laundry was a big part of keeping our family smelling clean and everyone dressed up for school and church. There was a time when my mother had run out of laundry soap and money. The laundry was stacking up and the smell was turning from gray to blue. Being the good ex Mennonite she was, she prayed for laundry soap. Why wouldn’t she? God answered her prayer with a 25lb box of laundry soap and it was a miracle. Now wait, there are a couple of ways to look at this miracle and how God answered her prayer. You tell me where the miracle came into play.

Mom, listening to the radio and praying
about the finances, the lack of laundry soap, heard an advertisement by a local appliance store. This store was so proud of their washing machines that they would even do a load of laundry for you and those who brought in a load of laundry would be entered into a drawing for a 25 lb. box of laundry soap.
Now before I go any farther – I should say this is a true story.
My mom of course being frugal as they come, packed up the most critical laundry needs and headed to the store about five miles away. The sales person true to the advertisement did mom’s load of laundry but was unsuccessful in selling her a new washing machine. Mom was entered into the drawing and won the laundry soap – It was a miracle.
Now who was the marketing genius behind this promotion? I mean seriously how many people other than my mother brought in dirty laundry to the appliance store? Think about it. How many other people were in the drawing?
I think there is more than one miracle here. The first one of course is the award winning marketing campaign of doing dirty laundry. I am not positive but I have the feeling a professional advertising company was left out of this great plan. For someone to actually think this could work is a miracle.
The second miracle is that my mother had the courage to load up her laundry and lug it into the local appliance store. Her most critical laundry needs were met that day. A miracle?
The third miracle was that someone actually paid money for radio time to run such an ad and they probably paid to have it run more than once for my mom to hear it.
Then of course there is the miracle of the drawing – imagine the staggering odds.
Now when I reflect on this story I think there is one more miracle. And, that is that God cared about a woman with six kids who needed some laundry soap and that makes me smile with gratitude. One thing I have learned –when you are His whatever it is you are going through – It’s from Him.

4 comments:

laidoffdiary said...

that's an awesome story about winning the soap! Your mother seems like she was a very determined woman!

Grayquill said...

Choco - Thank you for the very kind words.

liadoffdiary: Yes determined is one of her strenghts. Thank you!

Holly Kay said...

What a woman! 25 pounds? Now, how long did this last with 6 children and a husband, everyone working on a farm?

Grayquill said...

Actually, by this we had left the farm...
Nothing lasts long with six kids.