June 2, 2008

We were enjoying a nice, relaxing Memorial Day at home, when all of a sudden, the power went out. Quite unexpectedly, I might add. The sun was shining, the wind wasn't blowing much. You almost expect power outages during storms, but not on a sunny day.

I thought about calling the local power company, but I decided to hold off for a while. Even though we are in a rural area, our power system is usually very reliable. On the rare occasions when the power does go out, it is usually only out for a few minutes. So I decided to wait around and see if it were to come back on before calling.

And besides that, our neighbor across the street retired from the power company after a few decades of working there, so I figure if his power is out, he knows the right people to call. That really works well if it is dark outside and I can see that their lights are off too. But this was in the middle of the day, so I could just hope that he was affected as well.

So after waiting around a while, I decided to find something to do. But that wasn't easy, because most everything I do seems to require electricity to some degree. You don't really think about how much you use it until you don't have it. And just about everything I could think of involved some sort of electrical power.

Of course, watching TV was out, as was using the internet. We usually have grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch when we are home, but the small electric grill needs power, too. I did fold some clothes, although it was hard to hang things up in the dark closets. And then I noticed my cell phone needed charging, but I couldn't do that either. So I finally settled for reading a book.

I did eventually try to call the power company, but all I got was a busy signal. So apparently we weren't the only ones having trouble. And then a few minutes later, almost two hours after the power went off, it came back on. And went back off, and came back on again. For good this time.

It is funny to me how much we depend on electricity. At least until it isn't there. I know that electricity isn't necessarily a necessity, although we tend to think so these days. After all, people lived for thousands of years before electricity came around, and they made it just fine. Electricity has made our lives easier in some ways, and arguably better. But when it comes right down to it, we could survive without it.

Makes me wonder how many other things we have that we take for granted. Or things that we could just as well do without. I guess it takes not having something for a while to realize just how much you depend on it.

This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD." - Jeremiah 17:5

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