Challenges

There is always a gift in any challenge.

Bronnie Ware.

Life is made up of challenges. Some small, some catastrophic. Let me begin with telling you this comes under the small category. My hope is in facing challenges, of any size, we are able to learn something through the experience.

A couple of months ago, we had a room size rug put in the bedroom. For reasons that escape me, the original owner of our condo had tile installed. Ceramic tile is hard and cold. Not the best choice for a bedroom. So, after putting up with it for several years, we decided to look at options fro replacing the tile. We quickly found out, removing tile is a a messy, labor intensive job.

The solution, we decided, was to purchase a room size rug to cover the tile. We chose a cream colored, wool rug, because the bedroom is not high traffic and wool wears well. The hope was that we would never have to replace it, in our lifetime. Little did I know how soon that theory would be tested.

One afternoon, after coming home from doing some shopping, I was unpacking a bag in the bedroom. As I lifted a bottle of liquid foundation out of the bag, it slipped out of the bottom of the box and hit the ceramic tile in the one part of the room that wasn’t covered by carpet. The bottle shattered, sending a two foot long, oily, beige stain across the carpet.

My first response was to grab a cloth, spray some carpet cleaner on the spot and rub. As soon as I did it, I knew it was not the right move. I was making it worse. My mind said, “No, no! Blot don’t rub.” At that point it didn’t matter. I was never going to get the stain off the carpet. I would have to find someone and hope they could clean it. If they couldn’t get it out what would I do? I didn’t know. It wasn’t in a place were it could be hidden.

Several phone calls later, I found what I hoped would be a reliable carpet cleaner to remove the stain. I was warned that they couldn’t guarantee the carpet could be cleaned. I said a prayer and hoped for the best. By the next afternoon, the cleaning service had come and gone. The carpet was perfect. No signs of the catastrophe it had endured. The lesson for me was, even when something appears hopeless, it can turn out okay. A good thing to remember when facing challenges, large and small.