For the last several months, I’ve been trying to "wing it" on the stovetop. I was using an uncalibrated amount of fake butter—empty calories acting as a greasy, lubricated vehicle just to keep a frying pan from sticking.
But as my C3/C4 and L5/S1 chassis began the ever-imminent "Check Engine" light, my old method of cooking quickly became a liability. The torque required to stand over a stove, the strain on my neck and shoulders while flipping and hovering, was (at its core) exacerbating a nerve flare-up that my spinal cord impingement/rotation simply couldn't handle any longer.
In our consumer-driven world, we’re taught that the solution to a new pain must resolutely be born from a new purchase. And the oil-stained truth is? I almost fell for it. I nearly spent precious "real estate" (counter space for which my prized possession—a DeLonghi automatic espresso machine—takes residence) for a brand-new quesadilla maker from Amazon. In my prior logic, it seemed that a fresh transaction was the only way to solve a modern problem. But something in my spirit signaled a "stop-work" order. I canceled the delivery, realizing that the solution wasn't sitting in a modern warehouse. No, it’d literally and figuratively been waiting for me in a cupboard I hadn’t dared to open since 2016.
The Discovery: The Squawking Hinge of Memory
I turned my eyes toward the high cupboards—the "long-term storage" of my life. These are the places where we hide the artifacts that carry weight, which is to say, the things that no longer seem to serve us. For me, it was a hand-me-down from an aunt who had long since abandoned me with the rest of mom’s side of the family. For an entire decade, I scoffed at that plastic fossil of a quesadilla maker. I treated it like a leper—something to be marginalized, rejected, and tucked away where the "sour" memories of my past wouldn't require a second glance. The contemporary interpretation from the film Mean Girls, “ewww, you can’t sit with us.”
But the day arrived when I reached up, and those cupboard hinges squawked louder than a crow at Lincoln Park. They hadn't been opened because I wasn't ready to face the "ghosts" of who gave it to me. But as I pulled that ancient artifact into the light, a realization hit me with the force of a divine torque wrench. This very thing I snubbed a decade ago would soon become the tangible support I never knew I’d rely upon today.
The Leper in the Cupboard
In the Gospels, we see society scoff at the lepers, pushing them to the margins as "unclean" and "useless." Yet, Jesus never once feared offering stewardship to those rejected members of a marginalized society. He saw the inherent value in the broken and the overlooked. I realize now that I was doing the same to my own history. I’d marginalized that "fossil" because it was attached to a toxic lineage and an all too painful past. But God, the Master Mechanic, knew that my 2026 body would need a low-torque, high-efficiency way to nourish itself. He had me store that provision ten years ago, even when I gave it a major shrug.
What’s in Your High Cupboard?
Take a moment to look around your own "shop." Do you have "dusty fossils" lurking in the corners of your home or your heart? Maybe it’s a discarded hobby, a forgotten book, or an old tool that carries a heavy memory. We often scoff at these things because they remind us of "who we used to be" or "what hurts the most."
But as the tides of our lives change—as our health shifts, our priorities evolve, or our bandwidth tightens—these rejected stones often become our chief cornerstones. There's an ergonomics to grace. God doesn't just provide for our spirit, He provides for our physical frame long before we realize we’re going to need the help.
The Ancient Paths
Scriptually, there's a beautiful directive in the Book of Jeremiah that serves as the perfect service manual for this moment:
"Thus says the Lord: 'Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.'" (Jeremiah 6:16)
Sometimes, "finding rest" doesn't equate finding something new. It may just provide a different viewpoint, standing at the crossroads of your current struggle and asking for the Ancient Paths. This is when the realization that the "Good Way" might be the birth-child of a hand-me-down tool you’ve been ignoring for ten years. This logic can be seen as choosing the "Ancient Path" over the "Amazon Prime Path."
The Mechanic’s Diagnosis
In essence, this is the intentional and reverence I've stumbled upon. Today, I’m not just making a quesadilla. I’m participating in a liturgical act of stewardship. I’m using a rejected tool to sustain a tired frame, and finding that the grace I needed was already in the house. As Martha Stewart would say—"that’s a good thing."
So, before you click "buy" on a new solution, try opening a squawking hinge. You might find that the Master Mechanic has already pre-staged exactly what you need.
