Yesterday afternoon/evening Greg was gone getting the car fixed, teaching with the missionaries; you know, the normal stuff. The weather was pretty blah. It rained off and on and everything was muddy. Playing outside with Deagan in the mud just wasn't a very appealing thought to me. It was around 5 pm and Greg had just left again to go teach an investigator who only spoke spanish with the missionaries. We had just eaten and I found myself wondering what I could do to keep us entertained for the duration of the evening. It was around this time that I walked past our basement door and noticed a very odd noise coming from our basement. We have a dehumidifier that runs downstairs which makes a constant noise, but this noise I was hearing now was new to me. I opened the door and saw that the floor was shiny, and it was moving. "That's odd." I thought but nothing really registered what was going yet in my mind. I walked down the stairs and stepped on the floor and found my foot buried in water. I now understood why the floor was shiny and why it seemed to move; OUR ENTIRE BASEMENT WAS UNDER WATER!
At first I was horrified because I had NO idea how to take care of something like this, but then those hidden emergency skills that I guess I didn't know I had came out and I stepped into action. I grabbed Deagan from upstairs and my first mission was to determine where the water was coming from. The same time as I was doing this I called Greg and was secretly hoping that he would speed home and take care of this so I wouldn't have to. Unfortunately, I was stuck on my own.
I found the leak which was from a tube that was connected to my washing machine. I had just run a cycle and apparently it must have been a very violent one because during the process the cold water pipe burst open and sprayed water out everywhere well after the washing machine was done. At this time I found myself very grateful that I worked at University Village and knew that there was a valve I could turn off to get the water to turn off. (Before I worked there, I honestly had no idea there was such a thing. Lame right?) So I got the water turned off and then just kind of stood in the water to examine the mess. Water was everywhere. I had no idea how long the water was running like this, but long enough to make a mini pool.
Greg was still on the line and was telling me to get everything off the ground that was valuable which was really only his stuff he kept down there like his drums, guitars, speakers, etc. It was at this time that I realized a miracle had taken place. Every inch of the basement floor was wet, except the corner where all of his stuff was. Wow!
Maintenance came from our complex, got all the water out with a shop vac, repaired the tube, and left it like there was never a problem. As they were doing that though I was looking through the basement just to make sure that nothing else was left behind that could get water damage. Nothing was.
My mind went back to before we left Rexburg and when we were packing for our move. I have a ton of boxes full of things I don't want to forget or lose. Such as the blindfold Greg used when he proposed to me, letters from my sisters, pictures from when I was growing up, etc. I contemplated putting all of those things in a big cardboard box to store, but I instead to store all that stuff in tubberware just in case. That tubberware was surrounded by water.
I know that to others this might be small and insignificant, but to me this experience has reminded me just how mindful the Lord is of me and my family. We are constantly being watched over, and for that I am so grateful! What started out as a disaster in my mind turned into an experience that has made my testimony grow once more.
