still I will praise You

This morning was a normal one, it seemed. I woke up, got a call to sub in the afternoon, got the kids off to school, and took a walk downstairs to grab something from the basement.

I flipped the light on in the laundry room and freaked at what I saw. Well, I didn't actually freak, I just couldn't believe all the water I saw on the floor. My first thought was, "Oh my word, my washer leaked!" (It's done that before when a load was unbalanced.) So, I started looking around to see how far the water got. "It's bad this time," I thought. "It's gone all the way around the laundry room." So, I did what I usually do when something really crazy happens and I just don't want to face it alone. I called Jason. He was on his way to a doctor's appointment, so I knew I wasn't really interrupting anything, except his driving, I guess. Anyway, I told him that there was water on the floor in the basement. He immediately thought it could be the sump pump (by this time, I saw all the water on the floor of the main room. I didn't really think it could be because there wasn't much water by the sump.) But, I looked into the hole and saw that the water was up to the top. I guess the water doesn't really come out of the hole in the lid of the pump... it just seeps in through the corners of the floors.

At that point, I really wasn't sure what to do. It's like cleaning up a bowl of spilled cereal with milk in it. Do you pick up the cereal first, or do you pick up the milk? Anyway, I wasn't really sure what to do, so I started moving things upstairs. (Jason, by this time, was at the doctor. So, I knew he wasn't really coming as soon as I needed him. Naperville is just forever away.) I started soaking up the water with towels, because our shop vac wasn't working. Then, I talked with Jason again, and he told me I needed to get the cover off of the sump and take the water out by bucketfuls. I admit, I was a little scared I was going to take the cover off and find a snake or an animal swimming around (or drowned) in the water, but I was brave and did it. It actually wasn't too bad. I scooped out a bucket, walked it upstairs to the toilet, and dumped it. Then came down and did it again. And again. And again. And again. The water level was not going down AT ALL! Thankfully, around that time, Jason got home. He got the model number of our old pump and left, again, to Menards to get a new one. So, I just kept dumping buckets of water from the sump and soaking up buckets of water from the floor until he got back.

So, we put in the new sump pump, got a new shop vac, moved everything out of storage and into the garage, vacuumed up the water, got fans and the dehumidifier going. Now, we are just waiting for everything to dry.

In all of this, I couldn't stop thanking God for so many things. (It may sound silly, but things could've been way worse!)

We were thankful that:

we hadn't carpeted the basement yet

I didn't take an all day sub call (we wouldn't have known about it until 3:30)

Jason was off for the morning for a doctor's appt. (otherwise, I wouldn't have reached him until noon)

I was able to cancel my sub duty

Jason was able to take the day off to help me

we had money to buy a new sump pump

we learned a lesson from this

we have a dehumidifier and now a new shop vac

now our floors will be clean to eventually be carpeted

it's only stuff. (God gave some good perspective to Jason as he was driving home, passing by a busy funeral home.)