How Isaac reminded me to persevere through waterfalls

This past week has just not been a normal week.  Truly, it hasn't, and I'm thankful, because if every week were like last week.....Well, I would just lose my mind.

Last week we discovered ants.  In our room, the boy's room, in the piano room.....We are not dirty people.  It's true that the house is a bit messier right now than I prefer, but having ants just makes me feel gross.  And a bit jittery at night.

Then the fridge broke.  And while I'm very willing to see the silver lining, let's face it - in the middle of that silver lining was a great big cloud.  And I didn't like it very much.

Also, my washer and dryer have been out of commission for over a week.  A week.  And while our neighbor has been kind enough to let me use his, it has been majorly inconvenient.  I used to use laundromats on a regular basis, but with laundry piling up in a family of four, I'm just not prepared for that.  However, one thing I always insist upon is that every member of the family have lots and lots of underwear, because I worry about having laundry emergencies.  I wish I were joking...but at least we have no shortage in that area.  (ha! The worrying paid off!  Because I needed more reasons to fuel that fire...)

Then on Saturday, we came home from eating pizza after a long day of being super productive, and something felt damp about the air.  We didn't pay much attention to it, though, and got a movie out for family movie night (Veggie Tale's "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - jealous, aren't you!).  I went to make popcorn, when all the sudden I turned around, and saw that there was a waterfall coming out of our light fixture.

I wanted to cry.  Then I decided to take pictures instead (because that makes sense, in an emergency situation, right?).  We all jumped into action, and started getting towels to soak up some of it, and buckets to catch the rest of it.  It was awful - it kept spilling over and splashing me in the face as I tried to get things under control, and the water just kept pouring out.

Things were getting pretty frantic - we were not panicking, mind you, just frantically taking action, and Dave ran down to the basement to get more old towels.  I heart a lot of shouting, and found out we had a small lake in the basement.

For the love.

Ants in the house.  Fridge on the fritz. Washer and dryer out of commission.  A waterfall from my light fixture and now a lake in my basement?

For those of you who had a very boring week, let me just take a moment to say how very, very jealous I am of you right now.

Anyway, I just wanted to stop and cry.  It all seemed a bit ridiculous, and a lot to figure out in a very short period of time.

Backing up a little, on Friday night, we went on a walk and the kids rode their bike.  Isaac hadn't had a lot of experience riding bikes prior to being our son, so he's still learning, but really likes it.  At the beginning, everyone was really excited to be out, and ready to run - particularly Yarbo.

It's fun at the beginning, when everything is going well.  It's fun to have that burst of energy, when all you feel like doing is going forward and moving further down the path.

We went for about a mile and a half, and everything was going smoothly and we were having fun.  Then, we hit a big curve in the sidewalk while going downhill, and Isaac went flying off of his bike and laid on the sidewalk all crumpled up.

I found out how fast I could run.

Once I picked him up, he just started screaming.  He was scared, and had the wind knocked out of him (well, all the wind except what it took to scream), and then saw his palms and a few of his knuckles were scraped up, and a few places were bleeding, and just lost it.

Once he calmed down, though, we talked about the difference between something being scary, and things being ok.  It was ok that he was scared, but now we could see that he was ok, even though his hands stung.

I asked him what he was going to do next, and he looked at me, and said, "Well, I'm going to get back on my bike! It's the only thing to do!"

And he rode the last mile and a half home. He took the hills a bit more slowly, but he made it, and I was so proud.


I am so very tempted to allow myself to feel overwhelmed by the past week or so.  And there have been moments where I have given in.  This past week has felt like a big curve in the path, and I've felt frustrated.

But then I remember Isaac jumping back on that bike, and I am reminded to persevere.  To thank God for the trials because we thank him in every situation, and to have joy as we walk through these kinds of times.

Fast forwarding a bit, we will be fine.  I don't like all this stuff going on, but as I told Isaac, you can not like things, and still be ok.


We got the lake mostly mopped up, all the buckets of water taken care of, and we bailed out the water in our basement.  My best friend and her fiance happened to be in town, and instead of helping them like I had planned, they instead came over with her parents and helped us figure out the problem and get a temporary solution.

Turns out we had a hole in our roof, and sub-par drainage had been installed in our window well.  Oy.

But my friend's dad even came back today and fixed our roof, because he is just amazing like that.

Tonight, as I was putting the kids to bed, we were talking about what an unusual week it had been, and how so many things had been different than the norm.  I asked them if they could think of one thing that had been the same, though, and it was a sweet time together as we talked about how even though things had felt kind of crazy, we figured it out together -as a family.

It was a lovely note on which to end a somewhat-awful week.  I am thankful to God for sweet moments like that, and will be trusting Him to continue on in persevering through figuring out the rest of the details this week.

"Taste and see that the Lord is good;

blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!"