The Two Hundred Dollar Mouse

It isn't often that our house is plunged into crisis, but it happened just the other day when our refrigerator stopped working.  Or to be more precise, when our refrigerator stopped keeping things cold.  It was still working in the sense that the fan was blowing and the light came on when you opened the door.  But soon our ice melted into a river of water and all our frozen food slowly turned to yucky mush. 

Time to call the repairman.  We found a coupon offering $25 off any service call, made an appointment, and within several hours a friendly man arrived on our doorstep.  He fiddled with this dial and that gizmo for a couple of minutes.  Then he made a solemn announcement.  "I think we may have a little friend caught in fan."”  What little friend might that be?  Sometimes a mouse will smell food and then get tangled in the condenser fan.  End of mouse and end of cold air. 

Sure enough, he was right.  When he removed the bottom panel, there was our little friend, contorted upon the blades of death.  "We usually see this later in the fall, but I guess this little fellow was hungry," he said.  Within 10 minutes he had replaced the fan and was on his way.  

The bill came to just over $200.  

As I pondered this costly lesson, I remembered the words of Song of Solomon 2:15, which speaks of the "little foxes that ruin the vineyard." In this context the words apply to the "little things" that can destroy a marriage. Have you heard of Peter Jenkins?  He's the man who walked across America.  When he had finished his trip, someone asked him if he ever felt like quitting.  He said, Yes, he felt that way many times.  What was it that made him feel like quitting?  The high mountains? The searing sun?  The lonely nights?  The possibility of danger?  No, none of that.  It was the sand in his shoes.  That made him want to quit.  The application to marriage is obvious.  It's not the big things that kill a relationship.  It's the little things--the sand in the shoes--that we neglect to take care of.

Little things become big, irritations become annoyances, and annoyances become sore spots.  Over time, sore spots become open wounds of bitterness.  The infection spreads until it controls your whole life.  By that time, your marriage is in real trouble.  All because you let little things build up between you.

These things happen because we let the sand get in our shoes.  Little molehills of irritation not dealt with soon become big mountains of bitterness.  So make it a priority to deal with the little things, before those little things become big.
Email: raypritchard@calvarymemorial.com