Monday Mayhem

     Have you ever woken up & just knew that day was going to be a bummer before you even got out of bed??  That’s how I felt this past Monday.  I just woke up in a bad mood & couldn’t even understand why.  My first inkling that my mood wasn’t about to change for the better came when I opened my dryer & was greeted with this:

     There is waaay more to this picture then what you see.  Such as….see that splattered pen?  That is one of my favorite pens as it’s the old school type that let’s you choose which color ink you’d like to write with.  The culprit of this mess was asked on numerous times to please give me back my pen.  Sooo not only did he keep forgetting to give me my pen back,  it was left in his pocket where it not only destroyed itself & his pants but THE REST the clothes it was washed with!! 

     Now as the mom of 4 boys this wasn’t my first “I can’t believe what went through my dryer”.  I have dealt with crayon (take a hot iron, place a paper towel over the melted crayon & it should come off the fabric & adhere to the towel).  Gum?  Freeze whatever it’s stuck to & scrap off with a plastic knife.  Thanks to google, all it took was rubbing alcohol (or nail polish remover).   While I sat & started scrubbing my load of clothes with alcohol, my other son came in & informed me our toilet was gurgling!  (By the ultimate grace of God the ink culprit was at school giving me PLENTY of time to pray for peace before he got home:)  Sooo I set my clothes down & got to deal with this:     Lovely isn’t it?  My catch word that day was, “Seriously?” Yep, our toilet was overflowing.  That meant NO water can be run in the house as it will immediately come up through said toilet.  Of course, remember from my paragraph above I was also in the middle of A LOT of laundry too 😦 

     I called Jeff who called a plumber to come out, which they did 2 hours later!  To top it off, when the plumber asked where our outdoor clearing pipe was I told him for whatever reason our house didn’t have one.  He then told me that his company will not unclog a clog unless it’s through an outdoor pipe.  Seriously?!  Our house is only 18 years old so the fact that it doesn’t have one of these is INSANE!!  The plumber left….well, actually he gave me a $2600.00 estimate to have a clearing pipe put in so that in the future he could fix my clog.  The crazy part?  We HAVE had other plumbers out before & all you do is remove the toilet & run the snake through the hole.  Of course this guy was having none of that! I about put my size 9 shoe on the back off his hiney as I slammed the door shut behind him.  

     I ended up calling 2 more plumbers, while Jeff called another one too.  Neither of us could get another plumber to come out that day.  I then sat down & prayed.  I prayed that God would just help me to continue to stay sane & not give in to the bubbling anger I felt rising up.  I asked God to find favor in me for remaining calm.  I also asked God to please please please fix my toilet.

     After an hour of scrubbing all the ink off the clothes I had to re-wash them.  Ugh!  I figured I would sit in the bathroom & when the washer rinsed I would dump the water out of the toilet & into the bucket.  (All day long I had been plunging the heck out of the toilet & flushing to no avail, hence I was already used to filling up & dumping the bucket)  Sooo I ran the clothes & waited.  NOTHING happened, the entire cycle ran & my toilet did not overflow!!  I started flushing EVERY toilet in the house & it didn’t overflow.  I then said another prayer & flushed THE toilet…..IT DIDN’T OVERFLOW!!  I called Jeff ECSTATIC & told him God had fixed our toilet!  The BEST blessing of all??  We saved at least  $200.00 as a result of the plumber leaving & not fixing it!  I was sooo mad when he left, but look how it turned out. 

     I truly believe that God blessed me for remaining calm & not giving in to my anger & frustration.   My verse I kept clinging to was: Galatians 6:9 And let us not  grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give  up. Although I WAS growing weary from remaining calm, I knew I couldn’t give in to sinful behavior.  As a result of my trial, I have honestly learned that I TRULY cannot control somethings so why get all bent out of shape?  It’s much easier to except what we can’t change then freak out & try to change it & fail.  My day ended with clothes that were ink stain free & a toilet that normally would’ve cost $200.00 to fix, working again for free.  Monday may have started out with mayhem, but it ended with blessings. I am thanking God for those blessings as I’m continuing on to Canaan.

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