God works in mysterious ways?

Well, we made a real mess at my 79 year old mother's house on Saturday. We always get together for Saturday dinner and she had a faucet that she needed installed in the kitchen. My husband, Glenn, has had quite a bit of experience installing faucets and thought this would be no problem to do and we would have it done in about 20 minutes. Well this was not to be!

First, he went downstairs and found that the carpet was soaked! What the heck caused that? Water was coming from the water heater. Leaking slowly but leaking none the less. Well, mom decided that she would save that for another day. She would check the prices and get a new one and Glenn could come over and install it. So, she showed Glenn where the shut off for the city water was. and he took care of that. Unfortunately, both she and I forgot about the fact that the cold water in the kitchen was still supplied by the well. What a mess! Water all over the floor of the kitchen, in the cabinet and if that wasn't the worst of it, it began raining from the suspended ceiling in the finished off family room downstairs. I felt so bad! Here we were trying to help her save money and ended up adding to the misery.

Well, she called a plumber who put shut off valves under the kitchen sink, but now she had no faucet and no water to the kitchen. The plumber also found that the valve in the basement for the city water was leaking. This required the city to come out and shut off the water at the street to fix. When he left my mom, husband and I understood that he would be coming back on Sunday to fix everything but the valve. We understood that he couldn't do that without the city shutting off the water at the street and fat chance that you could get ahold of the city on a Sunday. When my mom called him Sunday, he had changed his story. He'd had a no heat call and it was taking a bit longer than he expected. He also said that he couldn't get ahold of the city and he was going to do everything in one shot. He told her that she must have misunderstood what he had said. Well, if she did we all did. Well, it really must have been the last straw when she called the office today to find out when they were coming and was told that the city required 24 hours notice to shut the water off. She got a little heated and used what she calls "the age card". I won't say here what her age is but I am 51 and I am the baby of the family. She told them that it was not acceptable to her to have to go another day hauling water from the bathroom to the kitchen. Well, they must have taken her at her word because not long after they called and said the city would be out to turn off the water.

Hopefully they can get most of it done today and finish it up tomorrow. Then the fun part will begin, the cleanup. The plumber did give her a card for a company that can take care of flood cleanup. And they will work with her insurance company. So, maybe we won't have to use shop vacs and rug doctor. But, we will see what happens on that. If we have to do it we will, because that is what families do.

Why did I title this peice this way? If we hadn't had the flood we wouldn't have realized that the water heater was in as bad of shape as it was. There is a huge bulge in the side. It would have been a worse mess if that had completely gone. And we wouldn't have known at all about the valve for the city water corroding. If that valve would have gone the whole basement would have been underwater before the city would have come to shut it off. So God does work in our lives in mysterious ways. And even though the repairs are going to cost close to $3,000 that's only money. The roof over my mother's head is much more important at this point. All of her memories are there. For now we can keep her there a bit longer. Thank you, Lord.