My hips and ankles were sore after spending an hour on my knees. Not in prayer, but in repairing my lawn edger. The blade had quit turning and I figured out what was wrong and ordered a new part, and while I was waiting for that to arrive, the yard was looking as shaggy as the hair on the back of my neck. The part arrived on a Sunday afternoon – a rare reason for an “alleluia” in these troubled times – but I waited till Monday to install it. I’m not sure if that was reverence for the sabbath or fear-based procrastination.
The part came with no instructions or schematics, but I found a YouTube video that showed me what I needed to know. The man on the video was so calm and serene as he talked me through it, and while his model wasn’t exactly the same as mine, the principles were the same. He did have the advantage of a work bench and vice to hold his machine still, while I had the ground and my lap and a foam pad for my knees.
Replacing the part was easier than I thought it would be as the new piece plugged into place exactly as demonstrated. Everything was going back together nicely except . . . it seems that every small engine repair or gadget fix I attempt gets flummoxed by a tiny little piece that’s not even what I am replacing but it just doesn’t want to go back where it belongs. In this case it was a wire spring and every time I almost had it set, it would snap out of place, sometimes jabbing my finger, sometimes falling on the ground between my knees, and sometimes bouncing up over my shoulder and hitting the pavement behind me. That’s why they advise you to wear goggles when making these fixes.
After what seemed like a thousand tries – punctuated with some raw mutterings and a few times when I got up to walk around and straighten out my sore back – I finally achieved the perfect combination of finger holding and palm squeezing and eye squinting and shoulder raising and lip biting and it all snapped into place. For a moment I was so shocked at my success that I wanted to open it up again and take a peek just to make sure, but I thought better about that and held it tightly with my hand while I reached for the screws and sealed it shut. Whew!
And so we struggle out here in our backyards and driveways, businesses and schools, and it can feel so helpless and hopeless. We fall to our knees and jump up in frustration and pace around, and then we go to our knees again and apply the tenacious spirit of “keep trying” that God has put in us.