Day 125: The Broken Toaster Oven

My toaster oven at work was knocked over and broken. I came in Monday morning to find the handle cracked off and the rack disengaged. 

My first thought was, "Who did this?"

My second thought was, "Crap, now I have to buy a new one and I just disposed of the 'old' one at our house."

I used it broken several times. It worked, but not very well. 

I slowly began to repair it. I hot glued the handle back on. See, at first I thought it could only be screwed on. Then I realized I could just hot glue it. Finally I could use it without a plastic knife to wedge it open and worrying about getting burned.

Then the rack completely came out. I stood there cursing in my head. "Great, now I can't use it at all." I began to play with it and realized it wasn't broken on the inside. It just hadn't been put back together correctly. The pieces were not placed in the proper places.

So, I put it back together correctly and now it's as good as new.

Why am I telling you this? Because it made me realize that something I thought was broken really wasn't broken at all. I had jumped to conclusions and had gotten upset without thinking it through.

This is what I did to my marriage. One day it appeared to be permanently broken, so I chose the path of least resistance (in my stupid head). I turned to someone else. I pretended to fix my marriage by creating a relationship with someone else. 

But, see, the pieces were not put back together correctly. I assumed it was not repairable, so I left the handle off and the rack placed incorrectly. I tried to continue to "use" my marriage to my benefits all while attempting to use a new toaster oven. 

Finally, I realized my old toaster oven was temporarily broken but could be put back together. I "cheated" by trying to replace my broken toaster oven with a shiny new one that APPEARED to be "the best toaster oven ever" (the soul mate thing).

Ha.....now I know why infidelity is called cheating (again, easy road in my drugged head). 

I intend to put my marriage back together so that it works better than it ever has. I still think about the shiny new toaster that requires no work. Until, that is, THAT toaster oven becomes old and doesn't function properly either. Except the shiny new toaster oven wasn't what it appeared to be.......it burned a hell of a lot of people during it's use.

Pray to God to help you repair what is familiar and "old" to you before running to shiny and new. Every relationship eventually becomes tarnished.

 Proverbs 3:5-6

⁵  Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
⁶ In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.