Lawn Mower Blessings

I've never had to purchase a lawn mower before, when we first got married we received a hand me down mower from one of our parents, and over the 20+ years that we've been married we have always been able to fix it up or nurse it back to health, and it has served us well.... last week it took it's last dying breath.

We knew this was coming, so it didn't come as a complete surprise, lately in order to get it started I would have to remove the filter, and put some gas in the carburetor, and even then it would still take several pulls and the risk of a hernia to get it going. Once you did get it started the engine had a mind of its own, sometimes it would run really high, and other times it would sound like it was going to die at any moment, and you never knew if you where going to be able to finish the lawn or not.

It was its time, it had fulfilled its destiny, so no tears.

Randie and I had talked a couple of times about possibly needing to get a new mower, and were hoping we could get one more season, and maybe we could get a break on the price as they closed out the year.... because right now it just wasn't in our budget.

But things seldom work out like we want them to... and it was time to buy our first mower.

I wasn't sure were the best place would be to go to look for a new mower, A couple of stores came to mind.... Home Depot, Sears, and Lowe's.

I felt impressed that I should try Lowe's first, when I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed that there was a small awning set up by Troy with some riding mowers on display...of course a picture of me mowing the lawn on a riding mower flashed through my mind, and I found a little humor in how it would look mowing our relatively small yard on a big riding mower. I thought I might as well see what they had and see if anyone was there.

When I reached the display there was a man there who I quickly learned was a vendor for Lowe's and was there checking their inventory...we had a brief discussion about mowers, and he pointed me to some mowers that were chained up in the back, not readily noticed. He said these were last years models, and that I might be able to get a better price on those, but would need to check with a Lowe's associate to get pricing (as they weren't marked)

I told him I wasn't looking for anything fancy, just a good solid mower, he pointed out 3 possible candidates and I quickly ruled out two of them as they were gear driven and I knew they would be more expensive, but told him I would be interested in the third one...it was a Troy built with a Honda Motor, and an Automatic choke. It looked like a nice solid mower. He said it was a variable speed and that the speed varied on how fast you walked and pushed it. (so no bells and whistles) He offered to find a Lowe's associate for me, and said that normally he thought it sold for about $250.00

I knew going into this that I was probably looking at that price range, and wasn't thrilled with the idea of paying that much... but I told him yes I was interested, who knew maybe it would be less.

Shortly he was back with the sales person covering lawn mowers, she said she needed some information and jotted down some numbers on the mower, and said she would be back in just a minute.

A few minutes went by, and she came out saying that I must be the luckiest guy in the world, apparently when she asked her manager about it, he said that he wanted to clear it out, and to take 50% off the price.

I got the mower for $125 dollars.

A lot of people would think coincidence, that I was just lucky, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I've learned however over the years that when I'm paying an honest tithe, and doing my best to keep the commandments that there seems to be a lot of "coincidences" that happen in my life.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and when we live the gospel, doors open that often we didn't even know where there, or weren't expecting, and we get a lawn mower that fits exactly into our budget.