Lessons learned while fixing the stove

One perk that came with my house was a beautiful old-fashioned stove. It was made to look like a Victorian era wood-burning stove, but it’s actually a six-burner gas stove with an electric oven with convection oven. For someone who loves to cook and loves all things Victorian, it was a dream come true. But this dream turned out to be too good to be true.

During the first week I was in my house, my mom was helping me clean and smelled gas by the stove. The gas company was called and the guy who came out diagnosed a very small gas leak, though he couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from in the stove. He turned off the valve to the stove, but told us unofficially that it should be safe to continue using the stove until it could be repaired as long as I turned the gas off when I’m not using it. That meant a trip down to the basement every time I wanted to cook on the stove, which, since I live alone, is only about three or four times a week. This wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience for a couple of weeks, I thought. That’s why I got a home warranty, I thought. Fixing the stove wasn’t quite so simple.

First, the home warranty was part of the contract when I bought the house, but I think the realtors forgot about it. So I had to contact my realtor to get that set up. Then when I submitted a repair request, I was informed that they don’t have anyone in their network, and I would need to find my own service company, call to get approval after they give a bid, and then get reimbursed for the bill. This proved to be more difficult that one would expect. The maker of my unique stove is Elmira Stove Works, a company based in Ontario, which specializes in high-end, vintage-styled appliances. Most of the appliance repair companies serviced only the appliances they sold, or repaired major brands, but had no interest in working with an obscure brand and getting parts from Canada.

Finally, my dad found someone who would look at the stove. My dad came to my house to let him in since it’s difficult for a teacher to take off work, especially during COVID. He diagnosed leaks in 2 valves and said he would contact my dad when he had the parts. This was in November. He finally got back to my dad in February. He thought it would take about 15 minutes to replace the valves, and his wife was waiting in the truck. The valves were not accessible like a normal stovetop, it required a great deal of disassembly. I had to help lift the hood off the stove top so he could raise the stove top, which was not how the manual instructed, but the way the manual described didn’t work. Three hours later, after all that work, the valves didn’t fit. It was a demoralizing moment for both of us. He said he would contact the company and see if they had a different style of valve and try to get the right ones. I never heard from him again. Weeks later when my dad tried to call him, his voicemail message said that he would be out for surgery for an extended period of time.

During this time of waiting I found an appliance retail company two hours away that sold Elmira Stove Works appliances. They also serviced them, but the man I talked to on the phone said that they would not drive that distance to service my stove. He also brought up another problem. My stove is about 20 years old, and finding parts for a stove that old might not be possible.

At this point, I began to consider replacement, but I definitely could not afford to buy a new one, and my home warranty had a limit far below the price of one of these stoves. So I started looking at Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for similar used stoves I might be able to afford. There weren’t very many, they weren’t very close, and I knew I could end up having the same problem with finding parts for an old stove in the future. I began to despair that I might have to get a boring regular stove, or just keep making the trip down to the basement to turn the gas on and off for the rest of my life in this house.

I was so frustrated that I brought it up in my prayer one night and asked God if there was anything else I could do. I got a clear impression to contact Elmira Stove Works directly. I had already eliminated this idea because the appliance repair guy had already tried unsuccessfully to get valves from them, and the retailer I talked to said they probably didn’t carry the parts anymore.

But I listened anyway and brought the number with me to work the next day and called during my lunch. I talked to Liz, who was very knowledgeable and asked several questions to determine which stove top I had and which valves were needed. When I told her about the first attempt by the repairman to order the parts, she double-checked that the valves were right this time, and sent six new valves (not just 2) at no further charge. She sent them directly to me rather than to the repairman who was indefinitely unavailable. She explained that she was out for a couple of months for medical reasons and someone else was trying to cover for her job while still doing theirs, which may have been the reason for the mix up the first time.

I felt like I had witnessed a miracle. Why had I taken so long to bring my problem to the Lord? 

Like many of us, I think I didn’t want to bother the Lord with such an insignificant problem.  When I was a child I had no problem asking the Lord for help finding a lost toy, but as an adult I make different judgements about the importance of problems.  There are tragedies happening all over the world, and I figured the Lord had more important prayers to answer than fixing my stove.  While this is not wrong, I failed to remember some important characteristics of God.  I was looking at the situation through the lens of a mortal who must prioritize and pick and choose how to spend the finite resource of time. 

But the Lord is infinite and eternal.  He is not limited by time.  He doesn’t have to pick and choose which prayers are most important.  He can answer those more urgent prayers and help me fix my stove without any trouble.  He’s also all-knowing.  He didn’t have to make any calls or do any research.  He already knew that Elmira had the part I needed.  And, since He loves all His sons and daughters, each and every prayer is important to Him.

When the parts came, my dad and I decided to attempt the install ourselves.  My dad is really handy, and I had already helped the repairman take the whole stove apart, so we thought we’d give it a shot.  

This time I went to the Lord to ask for help right away, and He did not disappoint.  It took half a day and a trip to the hardware store, but we did it.  Just to be safe, I bought a gas leak detector for about $30 on Amazon and found that the problem was fixed. 

When I bought this house I knew I would learn new skills, but I never expected to learn lessons about prayer.