And the Floods Came In: Fighting for my Home

I had a completely different blog planned; it was to be a part two for my Women’s Woman blog, but then in came the flood.

Many of you may have heard about the flood in Colorado, well my husband and I were part of that. Luckily we weren't right in the middle of it the worst parts. We did several inches of water pouring into our apartment that we had to fight off. While doing this I had a bit of an allegory for this came to mind.

For you to understand this, let me start at the beginning….
It was Thursday morning and I was about to attempt to go to school, even though it was pouring outside. I had a Math quiz at 9:30 am and I didn't want to make it up later. So, I put a coat, put on shoes I didn't care about getting wet, placed a towel over my backpack and trudged out into the rain. Now, I don’t drive to school, I commute via bus and train and to get to my bus stop I need to cross a busy street. I came upon this street and it was gone. The street was a fast moving river of water- I could see the current rushing past. I debated whether to try and cross and get to school. That was when I had several scenarios run through my head of what could happen if I tried crossing and none of them were good. I went home and told my husband, “I don’t feel like crossing the Nile River today.”

In the end he stayed home as well and we spent the day mopping up the water pouring into the front of our apartment and using his boss’s shop vacuum. We were at work fighting off the oncoming waters from 8 am- 4 pm.

Towards the end of the day the water had stopped rising and we could rest a bit before getting back to work. Before that one of us was squeezing out towels that we had lined against the wall. The other would be using the shop vacuum mainly on the carpet. It was hard work, but we weren't about to let that water into our home.

In the middle of all this I felt like my husband and I were fighting for our home. Yes, were fight off the flood waters, but it kind of reminded me how the world likes to invade the home and ruin what you have created. Just as the water could have ruined our carpet, furniture and books if we hadn't been attentive and stopped it.

In that one day we had vacuumed up over 100 gallons of water, and that’s not even measuring the water we squeezed from our towels. But we were determined to keep this force at bay and keep our home safe.

Problems and trials and hard times sneak their way into our home, even when we do our best to keep our home and family safe. My husband and I love our apartment, as small and quirky it is- it’s our home and place of refuge.

When that flood came we were fighting for our home in almost the same way we fight the world out of our home. Sometimes it’s all we can do to keep the problem at bay and all hands on deck are need to not sink. Sometimes we can step back and take a breather, reinforce our strength before diving back in and fighting the problem off. But, if we don’t keep an eye on it, it can leak back into our home or even find a new place to enter.

When we thought we had it all under control we found water leaking in from the neighboring apartment that is currently vacant. Back to work we went.

We had neighbors, from the last flood, which had to move because the damage was too great; I didn’t want to end up like that. I felt if we had to move that our fighting would be in vain. We worked hard to not keep us safe, but our home safe.

I’ve seen it in the world where people gave up the fight for their home and let the world stream right in and they wonder why they can’t find any peace. Or they move, hoping to find peace again. They don’t fight because they are tired of fighting.

We were certainly tired from the fight and could barely keep up with fighting off the water when a friend came with more towels. We traded out our soaked things for fresh towels to do the work our towels couldn’t keep up with anymore.

“Ask and ye shall receive knock and it shall be open unto you,” that’s what it says in the scriptures. Help did not come until we asked. Reinforcements won’t know you need help until you call out for help. (But of course it’s good to ask when see a friend losing their fight.)