GOD AND THE APPLIANCE STORE 

by Mariane Holbrook 

“There goes the last burner,” Mother sighed as she removed her saucepan from the stove.

Looking up from the current November 1957 copy of the Saturday Evening Post he was reading, Daddy offered, “God will work something out, honey. We’ll pray about it.” Daddy worked long, hot hours as a pipe fitter at the Lehigh Valley Railroad and came home spent every day from working outside in the sweltering, punishing heat. Raising seven children had not been easy and there had been many personal sacrifices. 

The old stove had been there longer than I can remember and likely was purchased second hand. My folks weren’t blessed with state-of-the art kitchen appliances but they’d likely furnished an entire mansion in heaven with their good deeds and godly living. Mother would have cooked for her family on a bunsen burner if it meant she could donate more to her beloved church or to her many missionary acquaintances.

Her love of missions was legendary. Hadn’t she quietly dropped her wedding ring into the offering plate when the church was desperately raising money to dispatch a missionary to Africa? So compelling was her interest in missions that she and Daddy dedicated one of their babies to serve God as a missionary to Africa. Sensibly, they never revealed their secret dedication to anyone including their daughter, who announced one day after graduating from high school that God had called her to prepare for missionary service in Africa. Norma served brilliantly with her husband in Africa for nearly 35 years and even then returned home only because of failing health.

Now Mother was left with just a small hot plate and a working oven to prepare her meals. Buying a new stove was so far beyond the horizon of their financial landscape that they didn’t even entertain the idea. She prayed that God would show her what to do. She needed a good stove not only for her family but for the endless parade of visitors who made their way to our home. Indeed, for the past week she had been entertaining two missionaries who were guest speakers at the church Mother and Daddy attended.

Several weeks before while walking to the grocery store, Mother noticed a sign in an appliance store window announcing a drawing for a new kitchen stove. 

“Why not?” she laughed to herself as she entered the store, speaking pleasantly to the owner. She dropped her entry into the large slotted box and finished her grocery shopping, never thinking of the drawing again.

But on this day, she looked at the old stove and wondered how many of her home-canned vegetables could be baked in the oven.

Suddenly, the phone rang, jarring Mother out of her reverie. “Congratulations!” a woman said with uncontained excitement in her voice. “You submitted the winning entry for a brand new, copper-colored 1957 GE built-in P7 Self-Cleaning Oven! Is it convenient for you to meet with me and a newspaper photographer here at the store tomorrow morning at ten o’clock?”

Stunned into near silence, she muttered through her tears, “Oh yes. Thank you very much!”

Mother and Daddy immediately thanked God together for this wonderful provision far beyond their expectation, then Mother hurried to telephone all her grown children.

God chose not to provide a discarded but still-working stove which gathered dust in the garage of a relative or friend.

God didn’t direct Mother to the newspaper’s classified ads where she could buy a used stove with two working burners for $25.

And God didn’t ”heal” Mother’s worn-out, beyond-repair, aged stove that had served the family well for so many years.

Instead, God answered her prayer “largely.” He gave Mother one of the finest stoves available, a model she never could have afforded. In fact, Mother would easily have been content with a stove of much lesser value. 

In a drawing in which many women had filled out dozens and dozens of entry blanks over a three-month period, Mother had submitted only one entry.

After a photograph of Mother with her new stove appeared in the local newspaper, she received many phone calls of congratulations. Typically, the first thing she baked in her new oven was a steaming hot, juicy, latticed cherry pie for
the manager and salesmen at the appliance store.

God had, indeed, as Daddy remarked earlier, “worked something out.” And God did it “exceedingly, abundantly above all that (they) could ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20)
What a Saviour! What a friend!!