When You Can't Fix All the Problems

Just before Timmy left for college, all the boys from two friends' families arrived to say goodbye.

And they pitched in to try to help him with mechanical issues he was having with two different vehicles.

They fixed some but not all.

(All while girls from four families visited by the front porch.)

The other day Hannah brought me one of her tops which had a small hole ripped in it. Could it be patched?

I showed her how to find an iron-on patch in my sewing desk drawer and how to iron it over the hole, shiny side down. 

We've been fixing and replacing and fixing and fixing.

A new storm door Jonathan found on clearance is waiting to be installed where the bent old one with torn screen used to be.

A window screen was torn at the bottom.
Jonathan cut a new screen, pulled the old one out, and I helped hold the screen tight while he installed new screen.

 

One of our vehicles sprang a leak in the power steering line.

Danny watched Jonathan working on it--learning for his Car Care course in school this year. 

It was such a hard spot to reach that Jonathan was working on it all evening.

I ended up helping by reaching in with my more slender fingers and twisting a tiny wrench to loosen and then tighten a nut.

But we got it fixed! 

If only we could fix other problems in the world.

If only staying up late at night with slender fingers and a wrench would fix them all!

But we can't. 

But still--there is one thing we can do.

When we can't fix all the problems in the world, we can still fix something.

Maybe just one thing today.

But we can fix one thing that will make a difference in our own--or someone else's-- little world.