The Case of the Missing Plug pt 1
We moved into a new house early in 1996. When we moved in there were no towel rails, no curtains, no floor coverings - and no plug for the laundry trough.
Over the next three years, I bought the towel rails and mounted them. I found the materials for the curtains on a fantastic special and spent weeks sewing and hanging them. And we eventually had the money to lay tiles and carpet. We even paid a tiler for a day to show us how to lay the tiles, then my husband, children and I took the next two weeks laying the remaining 60 square metres of tiles.
Somehow in all of that, I never did get around to buying a plug for the laundry trough. I often wondered why a plug hadn’t been supplied with the trough but instead of buying one, I worked around the inconvenience by using a bucket for hand washing.
Then, in April of 2003, I was reaching over bottles into the back corner of the cupboard under the sink and the back of my hand brushed against something unusual. I quickly investigated and found a small package taped to the underside of the trough. Intrigued, I removed and unwrapped it.
You guessed it. A plug! Or should I say, ‘THE plug’. The missing plug! It had been there all along.
A short time later, I set about celebrating the discovery of the plug by doing the hand washing in the sink for the first time.
I was recently reminded of these events, and on thinking about them, I realised that there were at least three things that had kept me from enjoying the benefits of using a plug.
First was ASSUMPTION. For seven years I had believed the plug had never been supplied to us. I had assumed that if the plug wasn’t in the trough or on the floor of the cupboard under the trough that it wasn’t there at all. This assumption kept me from looking more diligently and thereby finding the plug when I first needed it.
Second was IGNORANCE. A few days ago, I shared this incident with a friend who told me that the plug is always taped to the underside of a new trough. If I had known that when we moved into our new home, I would have quickly found it.
Last was a ‘MAKE DO’ ATTITUDE. I could have easily solved my problem by going out and buying a new plug. There were times I intended to do that, then forgot to check the size before I went out. Overall though, I figured I was making do using the bucket, so was never strongly enough motivated to change the situation.
My next post on ‘The Case of the Missing Plug’ will discuss how these same three things could be at work in us to rob us of the benefits and privileges of being children of the Kingdom of God.