One of my children, Stephen, has been pestering us to let him keep some fish for some time now. He was given enough money at Christmas time to be able to pay for everything and so he asked again and offered to pay himself. How could we say no?

We took him out and he chose a small aquarium and all the other bits and pieces he would need. We came home and set it all up, plugged the pump in and listened as it whirred into life. The quiet hum and the moving of water was very satisfying after the long (seemed like an eternity) set up process. As we walked out of the room, we heard the noise, scratch, scratch, scratch. My first thought was that it was his Hamster (yes, he likes animals!) We checked and the hamster was in his cage in the corner sitting quietly (he was probably wondering what the scratching noise was too). Then we realized that it was coming from the fish tank and on closer inspection, we found that it was the pump. It sounded like it had a bit of gravel in it, so I took it apart and cleaned it out and then plugged it in again. Once again the quiet hum was very satisfying and it lasted at least 10 seconds before the scratching started again. An hour later after numerous cleans of the pump I decided to give up. Tracey is generally better at mechanical things than me, so I decided to let her have a look when she got home. Tracey cleaned it all out and again and it lasted at least 10 seconds before making that annoying noise again. Then she had a bright idea, she pushed the filter pad right up against the impeller and tried it and voila: no more scratching noise. She really is a clever girl!

We were satisfied, at last it was working, it wasn’t making a humming noise, but at least it was working!! The next day, Tracey was cleaning Stephens room when she found a small piece of plastic on the floor near the aquarium, then the penny dropped: It was no wonder the pump wasn’t working properly, there was a piece missing! This small piece of plastic was used to hold the impeller in place, once fixed in place, the pump made it’s lovely humming sound (probably not so good at 3 o clock in the morning though!) which indicated that it was working perfectly.

It just goes to show that if something has a piece missing that it is unlikely to function properly!

God longs to be involved in our lives. I believe that our fulfilment can only ultimately be found by us choosing to depend on him.

Is there something missing in your life? Who wants to make a horrible scratching noise anyway!