Merry Heart Meditations - Part 2

…because God has a sense of humor…

Water Walking

For the most part, the Lord seems to like to take His time bringing things about in my life. I still have so many dreams as yet unfulfilled. However, when the time came for me to purchase my first home, He provided the money, led me to the house, and whisked me through the closing process at a dizzying speed. I signed closing papers on my home within three weeks to the day I started looking at houses.

I believe most new homeowners will attest there is a season of adjustment that comes with moving from a shoebox apartment to a multi-bedroom house. Over the first few weeks, the house and I circled warily to determine our thoughts on the other. I won some battles–the tiny worm I obliterated with a hammer in my living room was markedly a victory; however, the house continues to be a noteworthy opponent. The first night that the ice maker decided to dump at 3:00 in the morning, I shot up in bed, convinced that Al Capone was conducting business in my freezer. Oh, and for the record, nothing is more humiliating than seeing out of the corner of your eye something furry dart across the counter, shrieking in terror–and then realizing you are panicking over a glimpse of your hair in the bathroom mirror.

One night within the first few days of home-ownership, JD and I sat in chummy silence, basking in some “together” time before he had to go home. My parents had been over that night to drop off a used washer and dryer that some dear family friends had given to me–my first set of laundry equipment to own in my life. Much sweat, tears, and almost-blood (the dryer squished my hand in the door) went into situating the machines in my laundry room, and I was ecstatic at not having to use laundromats any more or encroach upon the kindness of friends.

My dad had instructed me to let the washing machine run through at least one cycle without putting any laundry in it so that the machine could settle and I would know it was clean inside. Unable to put off the excitement, I turned on the machine around 11:30 that night after everyone but JD left. The sounds of whirring permeated the house, making JD’s head begin to bob in slow rhythm. He was falling asleep between sentences.

Suddenly, the sound of insistent hissing filled both of our ears. I waited for a moment, thinking it was just a by-product of the rinse cycle, but then turned and prodded JD with my elbow.

“Huh?” He jolted awake.

“Is that water?”

“What water?”

“That sound.”

“Sound?”

“Nevermind.”

I jumped up and ran to investigate, only to discover my washing machine had emptied out all over the laundry room floor and water was streaming across the tile of the eat-in kitchen. I hadn’t seen so much water on tile since the day my brother and I decided to turn our parents’ front porch into a slip-’n-slide and slid around until we were so bruised we couldn’t move to go to church the next day. JD (who had followed close behind me) stopped and gaped in the doorway as if I’d flung him bodily from a speeding train into knee-deep quick-setting cement.

“Yes. Stand there. That’ll stop the water.” I hate to admit, my tone was rather sharp. He squinted at me with bloodshot eyes and mumbled something unintelligible. It was probably for the best, as I would have resented any efforts on his part to be reasonable.

For the next fifteen minutes, we employed mop, bucket, rug, broom, and dustpan to dry up the lake that had formed in my laundry room and kitchen. I learned:

1) that you can sweep up water when there’s enough of it.

2) that washing machines contain enough water to supply an entire city for a week.

3) that my washing machine has a particularly snarky sense of humor. I believe the entire point of this evening was to see JD and me stumble around in a sleep-deprived haze. After that one time, it has behaved itself.

4) that there are new things about Bible stories that I wish they would have told. For instance, I wonder if Peter found walking on water as slippery as walking on wet tile….

Unfortunately, there’s more to this story. Second installment coming soon.