Violent Storms and Black Crud

Last night we had some incredibly violent storms roll through the Dallas area. I mean to tell you that these storms (and the accompanying super-charged lightning bolts) were the type that cause you to either think about "running for cover" or even possibly doing so. They were fierce! Fortunately, I'm not aware of anyone in my immediate circle of family or friends who got hurt or experienced life-changing damages to their health or their property (although our 14 year old, Nathan, was out tent camping with a bunch of his friends from church!). I'm sure that many people unknown to me were affected by the violent storms, however. That's the way storms are. Sometimes you get hurt or life changes for you after them, and sometimes you escape their negative impacts completely.

This morning while getting ready to go to church, I noticed that our shower was not draining properly. It was all backed up and the soapy water from my shower was just standing there, not draining away. I told myself that I would have to take care of that problem (if it was still there) when we got home from church. Well, it was wishful thinking on my part to imagine that the clog wouldn't be there when we got home from church (I seem to do that a lot with home projects; that is, ignore them and just hope they go away). The same soapy water was still there when I returned, and it wasn't going anywhere too fast!

The following thoughts immediately popped into my head. "Did the violent storms and torrential downpours last night cause this clog to happen? Did the violent storms wash a bunch of trash/junk into the sewer systems, thereby creating a back-up in our sewage/drain pipes?" It seemed too coincidental to me that the storms and clog occurred nearly simultaneously.

So, I did what every happy homeowner does when you resign yourself to the fact that you have a clogged drain in your house. I got out the trusty ol' plunger and began rapidly pushing it up and down over the drain, hoping that by doing so the clog would be removed and the drain would run freely again. Pretty simple stuff. Clogged drains (and toilets) happen from time to time. It's basic Homeowners 101.

What happened next can only be described as shocking (and maybe even gross!). While plunging the clogged drain covered with the soapy water, more and more black crud got sucked up out of the drain and into our shower after each plunge. As a matter of fact, the harder I plunged, the total quantity of black crud increased greatly, emerging from unknown depths below that clogged drain. Yuck!

So, what's the point of me writing about this? Why would I take the time to tell you all about our gross clogged shower drain? Well, fortunately or unfortunately, God seems to frequently give me spiritual applications to life's common situations. And He chose to give me one for this situation today.

You see, sometimes in all of our lives we can just be going along fine and everything appears to be O.K. on the surface. Then a violent storm hits our life and we may experience some sort of "clog." It could be a major health issue, a sensitive relationship issue, a personal spiritual issue or something else altogether different having to do with family or our jobs, etc. When this happens, we may try to ignore it and hope that the clogged part of our life just goes away. It rarely does. No, it usually takes some really deep plunging to discover what's going on below the surface. And when we do, sometimes a bunch of black crud emerges and it can be gross and embarrassing, not to mention frustrating and humbling. But, it was all that gross stuff below the surface that caused the problem. Until we take the time to get rid of it, our lives really can't get back to normal any time soon. In the long run, it's really worth the delay and trouble to extract the black crud from our lives and get things flowing freely once again.

Tomorrow we call the plumber. He'll bring out his long snake and go after the clog and all the other junk that has built up over time in our sewer lines. Hopefully after he is finished with his work, we'll have a free flowing drain once again and life can get back to normal. Hopefully...