Timing… It’s All About Timing…

Monday night is family night at the gym.  The gym doesn’t call it that, but we do.  The boy works out for an hour while I socialize virtually on the treadmill and then we head to the pool for an hour.

The boy is happy.  The kids are happy.  And shoot…while I’m not happy, I’m not complaining.

But this week? Total disaster.

I pride myself on being able to schedule things and make things happen.  It’s what I’m good at.  Trying to get six people fed and to the gym by 6pm?  Major challenge and I had it worked out like clockwork.

Unfortunately, the boy and thing 1?  When left unattended? Tend to lose track of time.

Meaning dinner (which I prepared the night before) didn’t get in the oven on time.

No big.  The boy took the older two to the gym because they didn’t want to eat before working out.  I was to feed the younger two and be 15 minutes behind them…

except….

when I went down to the laundry room to round up the bathing suits?  I walked into a floor full of water.

I quick turned the washing machine off and the water went down.  I turned it back on and the water came back up.

Ok, I realized the root of the problem.  Knowing how frustrated the boy gets with the drain, and having seen him fix it before, I thought, I’ll just fix this real quick, then he won’t have to worry about it.

So I went out and tried to plunger the drain in the back yard.  Yuck.  I suddenly realized how thankful I am that he normally does this, but to no avail.  I couldn’t fix it.

I got to the gym just in time for pool time, and the boy left a little before I did so that he could pop the drain before I got back with the kids.  (I did realize that next week?  I’m taking shower stuff to the gym and they will all shower there.  Because it just seemed retarded that I had to dry the girls’ hair before we left, just so they could go home, shower, and dry it again before bed.)

But when we got there, the boy was unsuccessful.  He told the kids to take quick showers since it was still blocked up.. the water would just have to run into the yard.  He went to the neighbor’s to borrow the snake.

I got the kids settled and into bed and went out to offer to help.

I was the pedal pusher.

He was clearly frustrated.  I was trying to have a good attitude and so I said, “Hey… this could’ve been worse!”

With the look, he turned and said, “how?”

“This could’ve happened when we had 17 inches of snow on the ground or ice.”

Which is totally true.  The ice, remnants of the 17 inch snowfall we had a week before Christmas, finally departed the back yard Monday afternoon.

While my statement was TOTALLY true, it was not the time to bring this up… at 10pm on a Monday night with a drain that would not unstop.

At 11, we finally called it quits.  ”We have no choice,” he stated.  ”We’ll have to call Roto-Router in the morning and have them come out.”

“Ok,” I stated.

Yesterday, they came out and when they blew the line they stated that the pipe was broken and they broke it the rest of the way.  I paid $125 for that diagnosis.

At 3pm, the boy started digging.

I don’t think I need to go into detail about the state of the yard where he was digging.

It just so happened that all of the kids had somewhere else to be last night, however, their departure was later than normal.  I got them all off and I was the runner.  At 6:30, they finally found the pipe and by 7:30 the pipe was fixed.  Come to find out, there wasn’t a pipe there to be broken.  Someone before the boy just put a guard thingamajig to connect two pieces of pipe.  Oh and there was a rock that was blocking things.

By 10pm everything was cleaned up and I fed him, but we could all shower and use the facilities.  We let him have the first shower.

I thought it was only fair.

While our attitudes weren’t totally in the right place Monday night, I think they were on Tuesday.  Or at least closer to where they needed to be.

And today?  When all is well and things are fixed?  We’re able to reflect about the perfect timing of this mishap.

I prayed my heart out for the drain to open Monday and quite honestly?  I was a little miffed that my prayer wasn’t answered.  The service call was not in the budget.  The time it took to fix the problem was not budgeted.

However, had this happened a three weeks ago?  We would’ve been dealing with a pipe under 17″ of snow.

Had it happened last week?

We would’ve been dealing with a pipe under ice and sub-artic temperatures.

Had it happened today?

We (and by we, I really mean the boy) would’ve been digging in the rain.

Had it happened tomorrow?

We (again, the boy) would’ve been digging in the sleet and freezing rain.

Yesterday, it was in the mid-50s.  I was outside last night without a coat.  It was perfect digging weather.

And so I have to go back to Him and say Thank you.  For no other reason than His timing was PERFECT for this mishap, meaning, He was looking out for us.

And then, on the radio this morning, I heard this verse.

¹⁶Be joyful always; ¹⁷pray continually; ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

We need to be joyful, even if we’re standing in poop.  We need to pray continually…. even if we’re standing in poop.  We need to give thanks in ALL (not some, not just the ones that don’t involve poop) circumstances… for it is God’s will.

God’s will included a busted pipe.  I’m sure we learned something from it.  I know that for me, a deeper appreciation for the boy for getting down and getting it done, regardless of whether or not he wanted to do it.  I am thankful that he did it.  For many reasons, the biggest is that he wanted it fixed as quickly as possible and to save the money.

God was watching out for us.

This happened in His time.

And His timing?  Perfect.

As usual.

Until next time…