Sub-Zero Blessings

For years we have prayed over everything in the house, and it has really paid off; every single thing in the house has lasted much longer than usual. Including the oil-burning furnace.
Mid-January 2009: the Northeast experienced record-breaking sub-zero temperatures.
The sub-station iced over and power went out in our area last Thursday night.
I could feel the chill creeping into my bones as the thermometer plunged lower and lower.
I remember thinking helplessly of the nice new generator in our cellar.
Couldn't afford to hire someone to install it, so it sat there.
Next morning when the power finally came back on (God bless those NYSEG workers who came on duty at 2:00 a.m. !) I hurried downstairs to the cellar, plugged in a radiating heater to keep the pipes from freezing, and pushed the reset button on the oil burner which supplies our heat and hot water.
Nothing happened.
I prayed, checked the water levels in the feeder, tightened the hoses and tried again.
Again, nothing.
I called the plumber, left a message, plugged in some electric heaters and waved my two remaining teenagers off to school.
I worked at home Friday morning, so I went in my tiny office which has an electric baseboard heater and tried to work, waiting for the plumber to call back.
By the time the kids came home from school, he still hadn't called and the house was literally freezing as the temp dropped down to minus 11. Thick ice piled up on the windows, inside.
I called friends who were supposed to come to dinner & told them we would have to cancel.
They insisted on inviting us over for the weekend, so we packed and left for their cozy home, half an hour away.
I spent much of the weekend calling plumbers. Quite a few people were without heat we found out, when I finally reached our plumber Monday afternoon. "I can maybe get to you the end of next week," was his curt response, and he abruptly hung up.
Meanwhile we had been snowed in at our friends house all weekend; we even missed Sunday Mass. We did have a lovely visit with them, and their six wonderfully charming kids.
When we came back home Monday morning, I pulled into the neighbor's drive so we could dig out our own driveway. Larry came over to help; we do have such nice next-door neighbors!
The new plumber never came; when we finally reached him that night, he apologized and promised to get to us the next day.
He did finally arrive Wednesday afternoon, only to inform me that the oil-burner was shot, and a new one would cost about $5,000.
I couldn't help it; I started crying. I was so tired of working all the time and being really, really cold. I felt like I couldn't think straight, and I was moving in slow motion. Everything I did seemed to take forever. We were constantly boiling water for cooking and baths and everything we touched was very cold. I didn't bother to take off my coat, knit gloves and snow boots when I came into the house, just wore them until it was time for bed.
Six days later we're still cold, but the kids are tired of staying at other people's houses and said they'll just tough it out here with me. My friends suggested getting an electric hot water heater and baseboard heaters. Actually, what David said was "I'm going to buy them and you can pay me back whenever." The new plumber is going to try and patch up the old oil-burner to keep it going, maybe tomorrow he'll come back with some used parts. My tax refund should come in next month, so I might be able to buy a coal stove also. In the meantime, we're just counting our blessings:
Friends are offering to bring us wood, since we burned up all we had. People are praying for us, even the plumber. We have electricity, and (cold) running water, the pipes haven't frozen, the kids are just plain being wonderfully understanding and patient and kind to each other.
Praise God.