Over 8 years ago my family went through a very difficult season. We were already dealing with several challenging issues that year when we found ourselves in the midst of an unexpected crisis that happened at the most inconvenient time: when my husband was out of town on a business trip.
The night before
A little past midnight I was awakened by a loud bang and then a gushing sound. I’m not sure if the sound would’ve woken me up ordinarily but when my husband’s out of town my hearing becomes very sharp. Dust can’t even settle on the furniture without me knowing, that’s how acute it becomes.
Granted some of these noises tend to be nothing, but this time I knew it wasn’t the ghosts of my imagination. It was real. And it sounded like it came from the bathroom.
I switched on the light expecting to see something untoward but everything looked normal. Even my closet which was adjacent to the bathroom, looked smugly undisturbed.
Out of an abundance of caution, I checked the rest of the house. All the kids were sound asleep and their rooms look unruffled.
There was nothing in the front yard and the homes across the street looked asleep. The backyard was draped in darkness and I had no desire to go outside and explore it. Nothing seemed amiss, on the contrary, everything looked peaceful and quiet.
The day after
I wake up the next day, refreshed and energized. My son was going to a birthday party. It’s the second non-family birthday party he’s been invited to. My excitement for him made me forget the mysterious noise of the night before until…my daughter urgently knocked on my door.
“There’s water in my room and all over the hallway!” she said.
When I investigated, I discovered the majority of the house was flooded, not just her room and the hallway. The carpets were so saturated, it squished and left footprints when walked upon.
The consequences
The noise I heard the night before was the water pipes underneath our house bursting. And while we slept, the water raced out of the pipes seeping through all the cracks in our foundation.
We spent two weeks living in two different hotels (there weren’t any vacation rentals in our area at the time) while trying to maintain some kind of normalcy. Because although our world was topsy-turvy, life didn’t stop. The kids still had school. They also had extracurricular activities they needed to attend and homework to do. None of that could be put on hold indefinitely while we dealt with the consequences of a slab leak.
But even after our house was dry and we were able to move back in, we had to live through construction and all the mess that it brought. The kids slept in sleeping bags in the two rooms that weren’t affected by the leak. The very same rooms temporarily housing all the displaced furniture from the affected areas. The only way to get in or out of the rooms was through the maze of furniture.
Strength-building
Far from being relaxing, our home was a disaster zone: messy, cluttered and in repair. There was no escaping it. We had to live in it and deal with it every second we were home. It was difficult, chaotic and oh-so messy. And we lived in that mess longer than we would’ve liked.
The added stress of dealing with a slab leak in addition to everything else going on that year, made it a very rough season for us. During that time it was hard seeing anything but the problems because it was a torrential downpour of bad news. But looking back, what I thought was a terribly hard season was in fact a strength-building season.
What I’ve learned
I’ve learned difficult seasons don’t asphyxiate us – even though that’s what it feels like. Instead, they build strength, endurance and stamina. We grow stronger and the roots of our faith grow deeper, anchoring us, if we endure. James says in James 1:2 that when troubles come our way we should “consider it an opportunity for great joy.” He’s not saying to put on a happy face when we go through trouble but to consider those moments as strength-building opportunities.