Obedience in All Things

Sometime lessons in obedience come in simple ways, even when you still can't see the reason.  On Sunday, my hubby was handed the key to the church building and informed it was our week to clean.  Not a big deal, it's a good opportunity for our kids to learn the value of service and the importance of respecting the church facilities.  But this time we had an extra duty.  Could we please clean the ovens?  They're getting pretty dirty.  Oh, and one more thing - DO NOT  use the self clean feature.

Why not?  I asked Dan.  Is there something wrong with them?  Do they not work?  Oh no, there are a few R.S. sisters who are concerned that with the amount of debris in the oven the smoke will be so great that the alarms may be set off.  After all, on self-clean these ovens reach incredible heat levels.  So, Dan agreed that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES would he use the self-clean.

Wow, I thought to myself, these ovens must really be in bad shape.  Did someone spill something and then burn it on?  I couldn't even imagine the state they must be in to cause such concern, especially considering that we are only allowed to heat things up, not actually bake anything.\

On Monday morning we went bright and early to the church, armed to the the teeth with cleaner and scrubbers and other supplies we might need.  Since the spray must sit for a while, we thought we would play ball and run around the gym.  A good energy waster on holiday Monday.

I entered the kitchen and opened the ovens with trepidation.  After all, cleaning ovens ranks right up there with toilets for me.  I dread both.  What I saw caused me to reel back in disbelief.

On each oven there was a small patch of residue on the bottom surface area about an inch in diameter. 

This can't be! I thought to myself.  Maybe someone had come before us?  After all, if my oven at home looked like that it would be a time of rejoicing, a miracle of wonder.  Could these ladies have grossly exaggerated the problem to such an extent?

Dan stood beside me with what I imagine to be the same look of amazement on my own face, then he voiced my thoughts.  Couldn't we just use the self-clean and be done with it?  After all, we've used ours numerous times on much worse and guess what - no smoke.  We debated and pondered and sighed.

But we couldn't.  He had promised that he WOULD NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES use the self clean feature.  Cleaning this in the old way was crazy, ludicrous - but expected. 

So we did.  Even though there are no hood fans and I could not figure out how on earth to get the fan in the ceiling turned on.  Even though waiting for the spray to work was three times as long as actually cleaning the oven.  Even though I could think of a lot better ways to spend my holiday Monday.

Obedience in all things.  There must be a blessing in this somewhere.

Oh, and a lesson - check the ovens before agreeing to anything suggested by elderly ladies with perfectly clean homes who worry about these things but don't have the desire or energy to do it themselves.  Hee hee.