Building a New House

Well, as you may have read a few weeks ago, I purchased a house. Then last week my house rebelled against me. Now I, FINALLY, have water again as Kyle (my new best friend who I also happen to pay to fix plumbing for me) spent the day replacing the Back Flow Device in my front yard.  It involved digging a giant hole, cutting the current one out (which was full of stuff such as roots, TP, and conveniently, NOT a back water flap - which is it's main purpose), putting in a new one and then rerooting (hopefully it takes) my bushes.

Plumbing is my LEAST favorite thing

The new one is all bright and shiny!
Except now it's covered in dirt!

Hopefully the HOA doesn't have an issue with that small gap!

The plumber also found a few extra issues - well one item that will be a problem when putting the toilet back and another that could be an issue in the future and also the reason why my kitchen sink had the pressure of a thousand waterfalls.

What have I learned from this experience?

Well, first - when buying a house, pay a good plumber to come out to send his camera down the piping below the dwelling to check it all out.  An inspector is a basically just a 'glorified looker' and cannot see anything that isn't on the surface.  Roots growing in your back flow pipe aren't visible to the naked eye - neither is the lack of 'flapper' down there.  With a camera we would have known the issue.  The other two issues would have been harder to see - pressure regulator easy ... cracked item underneath toilet, hard.

Second, a connection spiritually.  A few weeks ago when I had signed the papers to purchase the house, I was telling a friend that this was crazy.  And then it seemed that I needed to redefine that word in my life - as I was always using crazy to talk about the stuff that happens to me.  Jobs in "Office Management," Car Accidents, Flying off to the Congo, Buying a House ... that this just seems to be #mymainstyle.  So when I texted my friends who were coming over to help me clean up that a tragedy had occurred, they laughed and thought "what could possibly have happened?"  No one thought sewage and so much water damage that the entire flooring had to come up.

Then yesterday MG sent me this quote and I feel like it can apply to my life physically and spiritually.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”  ~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

He's rebuilding us - keeps finding issues like broken piles, missing regulators, stuff underneath a floor that has to come out.  Putting up a different paint color to change us.  He forms us into the beautiful home that he wants us to be.  It's uncomfortable, we have to move around.  It's hard when everything you liked is being torn up while you watch.  It's gut wrenching even, but in the end he's creating something beautiful out of this mess.  I cannot wait to see what he has in store for me.