I Paid For This Repair In April

April.

You know the month without checking, and you know roughly what it cost, and you know that the man was perfectly nice and did what he said he would do.

And on Sunday it made the same noise.

The same one. Not a different fault, not a new problem in a different part. The noise you paid to stop, doing exactly what it did before, in the same machine, in the same kitchen, four months later.

And the feeling that arrived was not primarily about the machine. It was hotter than that and it had a name, and the name is something like: I was had.

Which is not fair to the man, and you know it is not fair to the man, and you have said so to yourself several times since Sunday and it has not helped, because the feeling is not responding to fairness.

And underneath that feeling there is a second one, which is the real problem, and it is this.

Now nothing looks trustworthy. Not another repair, obviously. But also not a replacement, because a replacement can do this too, and now that you have seen money go into a machine and come back out as nothing, every option looks like the same trick with a different face.

You are a woman whose repair did not last and not a woman who was taken for a fool, and money paid for four working months has never once been money thrown away.

Time and chance happeneth to them all

There is a sentence in Ecclesiastes that people find bleak, and read properly it is one of the kindest things in the book.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11, King James Version)

The race is not to the swift. The fastest runner does not always win. The strongest army does not always take the field. The most skilled person does not always get the outcome their skill deserved.

And the reason given is not that they were secretly foolish. The reason given is time and chance.

You are living in a world the Bible describes as having time and chance in it, and a decision that did not produce the outcome it should have has never once been a decision that was made badly. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who heard the same noise on a Sunday, and Ecclesiastes 9:11 puts the gap between skill and outcome in plain words.

Now look at what that does to April.

In April a sensible thing was done. The cheaper of two options was chosen, on the information available, and a person who knows more about machines than you do said it was worth doing.

The outcome was four months. That is not the outcome anybody wanted. But the outcome is the thing that time and chance got hold of, and the decision is the thing that was in your hands, and the verse separates those two things deliberately.

You were the one who made the decision and the world supplied the outcome, and a sensible choice in April has never once been made foolish by what happened in August. The written word puts time and chance between the doing and the result, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a woman from confusing the two.

And there is a detail in that verse that is easy to miss and worth having.

The verse even names men of skill, and says the good result does not reliably come to them either. The man who came in April probably did know what he was doing. His skill was real. The verse says plainly that real skill and a good result are two different things that usually travel together and sometimes do not.

You were not dealing with an incompetent man and you were not being deceived, and skilled work that did not last has never once been the same as dishonest work. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a woman drop an accusation she never actually believed, and Ecclesiastes 9:11 names men of skill among those the outcome does not reliably reach.

What April actually bought

Something practical, and it is a piece of accounting that has not been done.

April bought four months.

That is a real thing and it is being counted as zero, and it is not zero. In those four months the household washed everything it wore. Every load in May, June, July and half of August went through a machine that would not have run without that repair.

You have had four months of a working household that April paid for, and a repair that ended has never once undone the time it delivered. The written word measures what happens under the sun honestly rather than sentimentally, and the Spirit of God is the one who helps a woman count what actually happened.

Now the second practical thing, and it is about the feeling of being deceived, because that feeling will steer the next decision if it is not dealt with first.

That feeling is not information about the man in April. It is information about the gap between what was paid and what was received, and a gap like that produces that feeling automatically, whether anybody did anything wrong or not.

So the feeling can be true as a feeling and false as a report. Those are two different things and they can be held apart.

You are able to feel taken and know that nobody took you, and a hot feeling on a Sunday has never once been evidence about another person's character. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets both halves be true at once, and Ecclesiastes 9:11 explains the gap with time and chance rather than with blame.

Then decide again. Not because deciding again is fair, and it is not fair, and nobody is pretending it is. Decide again because the household needs a decision and there is nobody else to make it.

You are equal to making the same kind of decision twice in one year, and a second decision forced on a woman has never once been a decision she was less able to make. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman doing it again, and Ecclesiastes 9:11 describes a world where outcomes wander and never once withdraws a person from the deciding.