I went to the Laundromat the other day. For those of you who have never been you are truly missing out on an experience of a lifetime.

And for those of you that have been . . . you have experienced enough for a lifetime in just one trip!

I remember how much I dreaded the thought of going. Hauling the mounds of laundry down the steep stairs on my way to the laundromat . . . and so like the postman . . . through rain, sleet, hail, and snow I go.

Perhaps while you sit at the laundromat with a magazine dated April 1962 you are calculating all the quarters you will need for the washing and drying process.

Timing is everything in this experience. You want to make sure that the “Business men of America” aren’t having a conference at the UTrain Motel and need to use the Laundromat at the same time: especially after the process of coming down the stairs and loading up . . . through rain, sleet, hail, and snow.

I remember this being one of the most difficult areas for me to transition after many years of having a washer and dryer in my home . . . oh the luxury!

But you know, I was so caught up in the difficulty of what I was going through . . . and yes, in this area of my life, I truly felt I was suffering . . . me, myself and I  . . . I was forgetting about “them.”

“Who are ‘them?’” you say.

“Them” are those people, who like myself, show up at the Laundromat as well.

On one such occasion, “they” showed up. . . Sarina and Joel. Sarina was about eighteen and was moving through a very difficult time. She had just miscarried a couple months prior to our meeting.

Joel, Sarina’s boyfriend, who was very saddened by their loss, was also proud that at nineteen he had nine children.

After talking to Joel a little bit I found that he really had no contact with his children since the mothers had custody.

I could have shared with him all the worldly advice on how to be careful and such, but really would that have just been “a solution to a symptom?” Instead this was an opportunity to share with both of them about the Lord.

All of us move through situations that we would rather move “around” then “through.” I wonder if we tried to see these situations from the Lord’s perspective how would we respond. Would we try to move “around” them or “through” them.

Had I been able to move around this I would have missed so much. It isn’t about what we can get out of a situation . . . like comfort . . . it’s about what we can give. Then when it is about us . . . what are the lessons that God wants to teach us through these situations?

So this gets me to thinking, how much am I “moving around?” How much in the way God’s lessons am I missing? Am I willing to learn these lessons at such places as the laundromat?

p.s. The photo in this blog is one of the most recent Laundromat experiences. The door on the front-load washer has a cord blocking it from being sealed after it was loaded. Once you start the machine it cannot be opened until the whole washing process is done! So the water starts gushing out . . . then the bubbles . What did we learn? I can tell you the first thing was the phone number of the owner!