The rains came down and the floods came up!

Okay, so it wasn't rain, but we still woke up to a flood this last Sunday morning.

Seriously.

We found an inch of water in our basement.

For the first time this season, we turned on our sprinklers to water our yard. It went fine, but the last zone would have been on late and our timers aren't hooked up yet. My husband decided he didn't want to stay up til midnight and that he'd just get up early the next morning to water the last zone.

A glue joint failed in the sprinkler line and blew apart. A one inch line with a hundred pounds of pressure. Yep. A flood.

My husband woke me up out of a sound sleep at 7:15 AM, and I have a really hard time waking up fast. It's left over ridiculousness from my past illness. Normally, I have to lie in bed and drink water and detox tea for about 20 minutes to a half hour before I can get up and go. So, in a stupor, I stumbled down the stairs to have my feet squish into the lake that was my carpet.

This is no way for a morning-challenged individual to wake up.

I made my way to the back bedroom where my husband was firing orders and helping my 16 yr old son empty his room. In the beginning, tempers were short and everyone was bleary-eyed and confused. If it were a fire, I don't think--as a family--we'd make it. We'd be too dang slow getting out of the house.

In my son's room, water was streaming in through the base of his window. I looked out between the slats of the blinds to see the window-well half full of water. A lake really. I turned to my husband and asked, "Shouldn't we take care of this first?" It seemed comical to see him with the shop-vac, sucking up water from the carpet, when there was at least twenty gallons--or probably more--of water left in the window well.

I think as humans, we do this often. Focus on the wrong thing, thinking we're solving our problem, when really, all we need to do is turn a few degrees to see what we really need to work on.

Lucky for me, my husband is a plumbing contractor and he already had a pump, pumping water from the window. Dang, he's good! He was the only one who had a working brain that early.

We spent the rest of the day emptying three bedrooms, pulling up carpet and padding, taking it out to the truck to go to the dump, and taking our belongings out to the back lawn to dry (blankets, clothes, and part of one mattress was wet)

Here's the cool thing, and it's something my husband brought up to me. We were SO lucky! It could have been so much worse! Most of our stuff was already in rubber totes and off the floor. The ONLY thing that is probably totally ruined is my son's iPad that he had lying on the floor next to his bed--oh, and his scriptures, which I'm now trying to dry. We seriously couldn't believe it. Even my cedar chest, which was against a wall that had flooding around it, was only damp on the very bottom!! Nothing was harmed on the inside AT ALL! And I'm talking keepsakes, one-hundred year old family bibles, pictures of ancestors, old letters etc...

We also pulled together to work in harmony--for the most part--and it was something I really prayed for first thing in the morning, because it was really hard to feel cheerful, and everyone was a little ornery. Understandably. But we got along, everyone helping, and I realized there is hope for mankind. If we can make it happen under that kind of stress, anyone can.

And then there is the miraculous fact that my husband felt like waiting to water the last zone until the morning, and that he even remembered to get up early, that it was only an inch of water and not a foot! And who knows how long it was running? And that the only thing ruined was an iPad! Wow! We feel so blessed.

Just because you are doing your best, trying to always choose the right, trying to deepen your relationship with the Savior, doesn't mead bad things won't happen to you. Sometimes terrible things. What the Lord does, is help you through it. He'll inspire your mind to wake up early, or tell you to wait until morning to finish watering.

Do we hear that little voice in our head and think it's the Holy Ghost or do we just assume it's our own mind, droning on in that boring monotone voice we've become accustomed to? My husband and I have learned to not ignore that voice or those gut feelings that have saved our bacon more than once.

Yeah, we all go through bad things, but if He can, He'll try to make it as easy on us as possible, because we'll all walk through hills and valleys in this life--and sometimes even the shadow of death--but He is always with us if we open our eyes to see Him.

His yoke is easy and his burden is light.