A month or so ago, ‘Mondo’ (the vacuum cleaner I’d been given when I moved in to my new home), stopped working.  He was second hand, but still, I was disappointed that he gave up after such a short time together.  But then on investigation, I discovered he didn’t have a bag inside. Doh!!!!  And as a result, Mondo had now over heated, stopped working, and there was ‘a smell’ I hadn’t noticed before.
“How could you be so stupid?” you might ask.
To which I would reply “I don’t know, but I’ve asked myself the same thing over and over again.”

At that time, I removed Mondo’s filter, gave him a good clean, put a bag in him, and tried him again, but Mondo still wasn’t working.  I concluded that what Mondo really needed was another vacuum cleaner to suction out all that dust from his ‘inner parts’.  So I took Mondo up to Godfrey’s to see if they could fix him. For a $10 fee Mondo received a thorough suction out with a high power vacuum … but alas … much to my dismay … that still wasn’t enough.  I had hoped that a good Godfrey suction would do the trick.  But I was again disappointed.  Not even Godfrey’s could fix this issue … but they did offer to dispose of him for me, to which I declined and left with my dead Mondo.

Later that evening, when I felt that Mondo had had sufficient time to cool down, I gave him another go … plugged him into power, and hit the button … NOTHING!  All that achieved was to reinforce those feelings of regret over my not having checked for a bag.  I guess the filter had blocked and the engine was now burnt out.  So rather than repeat and confirm that over and over again, I decided that the damage had been done.  The indicator was fully red instead of green.  Mondo was now kaput, beyond repair, finished, and dead!  Accept it!  It is what it is!

So I resigned myself to accepting my mistake.  But still, I kicked myself, repeatedly, that it didn’t occur to me to check inside for a bag … and for the resulting consequences of having to buy a new vacuum, incurring an expense that I wouldn’t have had to if I had just thought to check for a bag.   I guess I just assumed Mondo had one.  I actually didn’t give it a thought … even though I’d been given 4 packets of spare bags, it never occurred to me to check.

I also felt particularly bad that Mondo had been such a generous gift and I’d not looked after him properly, albeit unintentionally.  And now I could do nothing else but throw him out.  So I ventured out and bought a new vacuum, (a bagless one this time) and put Mondo in the carport to wait for the next hard rubbish collection.

  Then just last week …

… as I arrived home, pulling into my carport, I noticed my dead Mondo was gone from the corner.  Hmm…. someone must have thought they would give him a go (haha … good luck with that!) …. or that they could use him for parts or something … “Oh well” I thought “they have saved me the trouble of getting rid of him” …. but then I noticed a whirring sound coming from within my apartment building … I chuckled … thinking “Imagine that! Imagine if that is my Mondo making that noise? Can’t be!!!  But it does seem a little too ‘coincidental’ that Mondo is gone, and someone is vacuuming somewhere close by?”

Lo and behold as I entered my building … there’s my dead Mondo vacuuming the stairwell.  The cleaner had arrived but didn’t have his vacuum with him, saw Mondo sitting in the carport, and was ‘chuffed’ to find him ‘available’. So … he thought … Carpe diem! (seize the day/opportunity).  I told the cleaner Mondo’s story, and he said “Well he’s working just fine now.”  He seemed shocked, surprised somehow, that I could have thought Mondo was dead, when he is so obviously now working just as he should.

And so it is…

That ‘thing’ that you think is kaput, beyond repair, finished, dead … It’s not!
Just because it seems dead, doesn’t mean it is dead.
Don’t be so quick to throw it away and replace it.

Even though you tried again and again in the hope of getting it working again (the right way – with a bag in it) … and it still didn’t work, seemingly it just needed time.  Time to do what?  I don’t know … cool down completely maybe?  But in any case, it doesn’t matter, as it’s working again, just as good as it used to.  But maybe this time with a bag in place, your ‘Mondo’ (just like my Mondo) will work even better, and have a longer lifespan, without all that dust and dirt clogging up his inner parts.

Apparently even that which by all accounts seems dead and burnt out, (vacuum cleaners included), can be resurrected!  Nothing is impossible!

As I now have my flash new bagless vacuum, I’ve donated Mondo to the apartment building, where he serves a bigger purpose in maintaining our common areas: the foyer and the stairwell for 8 apartments.

I wonder what the bigger purpose is in the resurrection of that seemingly dead ‘thing’ you’re dealing with…

While the dictionary lists resuscitation and resurrection as synonyms of each other, no-one was resuscitating Jesus in the tomb. His story is one of resurrection…

But remember this:
What man can’t (fix) or resuscitate,
God can still resurrect.