Borrowed Chainsaw

In 1980, I began teaching at Calvary Christian school.  My salary was $800 a month but included housing.  To save on the electric bill, I bought a wood stove to heat with.  It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed cutting wood and feeling the warmth of the wood fire.  It reminded me of my childhood.  Our church had three wooded acres just past our duplex, so I had plenty of wood available.  But I didn’t have a chain saw.  I borrowed a 14” McClough saw from Jake M. at church one Saturday and cut a small tree.  But I miscalculated and the tree didn’t fall. It leaned over a couple of feet caught the limbs of a nearby tree and was left sitting on the stump.  So, I got a six-foot step ladder to cut another notch higher up the tree hoping it would fall free of the other tree.  But when I got most of the way through the tree, the weight of the tree pinched the bar of the chainsaw, and it was hopelessly wedged.  I couldn’t use an ax on the tree, or I might hit the chainsaw.  So, I borrowed a second chainsaw from Richard T. and notched the leaning tree just below the first wedged chainsaw.  And it worked!  … a little too good.  The tree snapped, the chainsaw fell free to the ground, and the tree came down onto the freed chain saw smashing it to pieces.  I was stunned.  I had destroyed a borrowed chainsaw.  I had no choice.  I bought a new McClough chainsaw to replace Jake’s destroyed saw, finished cutting up my tree, and returned the new saw to Jake … with no explanation.  Granny Whitely used to say, “Poor people have poor ways.”  And that was true of me.  When Jake saw the new saw, he told my sad story to others at church and soon I had my money back AND a new chainsaw of my own.  No more borrowing.  Solomon said in Proverbs 17:17, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”