Tender Mercies Welcome Us Home
I'm sure you'd love to read about our awesome Christmas vacation in Salt Lake City with the Reynolds family. You'd probably like to hear about what we did for 10 days. You'd like to see pictures of the mural I painted while I spent 26 hours beneath a stair case in Bluffdale.
Well, I would like to write about them. But not today. Because sometimes things don't turn out they way you'd like. So instead I'm going to tell you what we found when we got home from our trip last night. Along the way, I'll highlight the many tender mercies we've encountered since our return.
Our friend Greg agreed to pick us up from the airport. We were due to arrive in Kansas City at 10:40pm, and since the airport is almost an hour away, whoever picked us up was going to go to bed a little late. Greg picking us up turned out to be the first tender mercy, although we didn't know it until he helped us carry our luggage into our living room.
Brooke opened the front door, and hurried to disarm the alarm, but it wasn't active. Maybe we had just forgotten to arm the system before we left. We heard a strange noise above the normal roar of our furnace. Greg later told us that the noise caused a pit in his stomach because he thought he recognized it. Brooke went to the back door to go downstairs to check it out. Greg and I followed.
What we found was burst water pipe, and various items in the basement floating in nearly two feet of water. I took off my shoes and waded over to the water main and shut it off, stopping the spray of water filling the basement. None of us could believe our eyes. This was not the scene we wanted to return home to.
Our car was parked in the basement, and the water level seemed to have nearly reached the doors. I backed it out of the standing water before we went to bed and found a few inches of water on the floor in the front and back seats that we bailed out with some cups. There was also water in the base of our furnace, so we had to shut it down right away.
Greg left and said he would call his plumber first thing in the morning. As you can imagine, it wasn't easy to get to sleep. But once we did, we slept hard. We had to pile on the blankets and crank the space heater to make up for shutting down our furnace.
My phone woke me up just after 7:00am. It was the plumber calling to say someone would be over to fix the pipe and replace our sump pump at about 9:00am. While I was up, I emailed my boss to explain that I wouldn't be able to work today. I went back to bed because every other room in the house was pretty cold. I woke up again when the plumber called at 9:00am to say he was on his way.
He immediately set up the new sump pump and started draining the basement. A plumber being able to come when he did was also a tender mercy. Here's another: Today was garbage day. There were two bags of garbage floating in the basement that I was able to grab and take to the curb. It was then that we discovered a few more tender mercies of the Lord.
Today wasn't a normal garbage pickup. Because it was the week after Christmas, we could put out more than the two bags normally allowed. Turns out that we put about 20 bags of ruined, wet stuff on the curb. And here's another tender mercy: the garbage men came later than usual, which allowed us to bag everything in the basement that needed to be thrown out. Nothing priceless was ruined, although we were sad to seem some things go.
And yet another tender mercy: While we were shuttling out water-logged garbage bags to the curb, it was in the mid-50s. It made the process much easier than it would have been had it been near-freezing. The mild weather also lessened the need for our temporarily out-of-service-furnace.
Now the basement is nearly dry thanks to the Bauman's old industrial fan that has been blowing since the plumber left. The furnace and our car are working just fine. The dryer is not, but that's a different story. It's been an extremely long day, and not what we had in mind for our first day home from vacation. But in the face of another trial, it was nice to be able to recognize all of the ways that our burden was made a little lighter.
Well, I would like to write about them. But not today. Because sometimes things don't turn out they way you'd like. So instead I'm going to tell you what we found when we got home from our trip last night. Along the way, I'll highlight the many tender mercies we've encountered since our return.
Our friend Greg agreed to pick us up from the airport. We were due to arrive in Kansas City at 10:40pm, and since the airport is almost an hour away, whoever picked us up was going to go to bed a little late. Greg picking us up turned out to be the first tender mercy, although we didn't know it until he helped us carry our luggage into our living room.
Brooke opened the front door, and hurried to disarm the alarm, but it wasn't active. Maybe we had just forgotten to arm the system before we left. We heard a strange noise above the normal roar of our furnace. Greg later told us that the noise caused a pit in his stomach because he thought he recognized it. Brooke went to the back door to go downstairs to check it out. Greg and I followed.
What we found was burst water pipe, and various items in the basement floating in nearly two feet of water. I took off my shoes and waded over to the water main and shut it off, stopping the spray of water filling the basement. None of us could believe our eyes. This was not the scene we wanted to return home to.
Our car was parked in the basement, and the water level seemed to have nearly reached the doors. I backed it out of the standing water before we went to bed and found a few inches of water on the floor in the front and back seats that we bailed out with some cups. There was also water in the base of our furnace, so we had to shut it down right away.
Greg left and said he would call his plumber first thing in the morning. As you can imagine, it wasn't easy to get to sleep. But once we did, we slept hard. We had to pile on the blankets and crank the space heater to make up for shutting down our furnace.
My phone woke me up just after 7:00am. It was the plumber calling to say someone would be over to fix the pipe and replace our sump pump at about 9:00am. While I was up, I emailed my boss to explain that I wouldn't be able to work today. I went back to bed because every other room in the house was pretty cold. I woke up again when the plumber called at 9:00am to say he was on his way.
He immediately set up the new sump pump and started draining the basement. A plumber being able to come when he did was also a tender mercy. Here's another: Today was garbage day. There were two bags of garbage floating in the basement that I was able to grab and take to the curb. It was then that we discovered a few more tender mercies of the Lord.
Today wasn't a normal garbage pickup. Because it was the week after Christmas, we could put out more than the two bags normally allowed. Turns out that we put about 20 bags of ruined, wet stuff on the curb. And here's another tender mercy: the garbage men came later than usual, which allowed us to bag everything in the basement that needed to be thrown out. Nothing priceless was ruined, although we were sad to seem some things go.
And yet another tender mercy: While we were shuttling out water-logged garbage bags to the curb, it was in the mid-50s. It made the process much easier than it would have been had it been near-freezing. The mild weather also lessened the need for our temporarily out-of-service-furnace.
Now the basement is nearly dry thanks to the Bauman's old industrial fan that has been blowing since the plumber left. The furnace and our car are working just fine. The dryer is not, but that's a different story. It's been an extremely long day, and not what we had in mind for our first day home from vacation. But in the face of another trial, it was nice to be able to recognize all of the ways that our burden was made a little lighter.
Man, that sounds awful. I'm so glad that it wasn't any worse, though. When you started I was thinking you guys had been burglarized. That happened to Julie's cousin. I'm sorry that we couldn't be there to help but I am glad that our fan was able to help.
ReplyDeleteyou should send this story to the ensign. i found it very ispiring. what good attitudes you both have. i am sure that it would have taken us months and months before we could have seen the tender mercies...
ReplyDeleteBrooke and Todd: Now I know why I love you guys so much--because of your faith and trust in the Lord. You are able to see tender mercies in the midst of trials and that, my friends, is an uncommon thing.
ReplyDelete