A test in faith

My wife and I have been tested the last few days on the basis of 'Do you trust God?'. Meaning, things happen that are beyond our control and we need to make a choice: Curse Him or trust Him.

Yesterday was, for me, a big test. Monday mornings are horrible to me anyway, but this day was worse than most.

Aidan and I had breakfast, then cleaned the cat litter. We had purchased this 'flushable' litter before and the new stuff we bought I assumed would be flushable since it was similar.

We (Aidan and I) went upstairs to help Carolyn get Ethan and all his gear and ended up being there for twenty minutes or so. Carolyn noted the heater sounded funny, which I fluffed off with a 'eh, don't worry I'm sure it's fine'.

We as a family went down stairs to a kitchen flooded from a clogged and continually running toilet that overflowed from the 'flushable' litter that I put down there. It flooded the kitchen, bathroom and basement. It soaked the furnace which wouldn't turn on.

I was beside myself. This was a huge deal. I couldn't unclog the toilet so I called a plumber, then proceeded to look for a reliable Heating and Furnace place.

In the mean time we had friends call or email saying "if it gets too cold there [remember, furnace no work] you can come to our place". We also had friends doing some leg work trying to find a "Mr. Fixit" for the furnace.

We prayed, I stewed and stomped and cleaned up as much water as I could. It was nasty and cold. My feet still ache (yes, I was walking barefoot in the water for a while). Then we talked to a lady from my wife's work who's husband promptly showed up with a Shop-Vac and helped clean up the basement and de-waterlog the furnace. He got the furnace running and then took me to HomeDepot for a auger thing for the toilet. Got that fixed.

Now the house is basically back to normal. The basement is still kind of nasty with dirt and some mud, but otherwise fine. We had NO damage to anything.

Why is this a test?

First, the plumber was going to be at least $200. I had money set aside for a special project I'm working on (Deadland) and was excited about it - and this would have cut that budget right out. Then a furnace repair is at least this much or more, and many people I talked to said it would probably require replacing a lot of parts ... hundreds of dollars.

So, in the end we had to spend $9. That's it. Add many hours of manual labor (finished mopping the floors at around 8pm) and that's that.Toilet works. Furnace works. House no longer smells like crap (literal).

So you see. My wife held to her faith that God would make a way. I held on to my faith that God will make a way. Aidan cried because when he saw the water he thought the cat knocked over his water cup. Ethan slept, ate, pooed and whined about eating and sleeping.

Carolyn and I held to our faith that God would make a way, even though I was pretty depressed about things I prayed and hoped and held faith that God would work it out.

And He did.

God is good my friends. God is good.