(21) Blessed with a significant unexpected expense

As I mentioned in the last post we had an emergency with significant unexpected expenses on September 20. Before I get to that I have to set this up in hopes that the miracle will be more recognizable.  In a perfect home of order and an ideal life -which don't exist in the way I dream them up- we were going to have our personal items packed up in 1 to 1 1/2 weeks. This would free up time later for all of the things that couldn't be done so early; and for more time to go to many or our favorite local places and spend more time with family and friends. I've shared how all my kids can be hard workers even when it comes to doing jobs they really don't like. At different times one or another of them will step up and go way above and beyond my hopes. Before I came up with the brilliant idea mentioned above our Eliza had already started packing up her stuff. Since we had to start somewhere and our library is in her room I decided to work in the same area so we could spend time together. When I came in with boxes she informed me that our youngest had had a water bottle that spilled in the night. I was grateful it was just water but a little annoyed that they had collected almost all the towels in the home to dry up this little spill. After trying to soak it up for a bit I decided we would just leave a towel over it to keep from getting dirt tracked into it and that it was dry enough. We set to work together to organize and pack books. That afternoon I planned on us going to one of our favorite local attractions -Ashton Garden's at Thanksgiving Point. As we were getting ready to leave my daughter called me back to her room. The towel was soaked! It was one of those moments were I wish I didn't know so our plans wouldn't have to change, yet the thought of this going unchecked would have been SO much worse. I called my husband while we looked for a flashlight to get a better look at what was going on. On the opposite side of the wall were the water was found we have two 40 gallon water heaters. It was late in the afternoon so Ben came home from work and called a plumber on his way. Of course we weren't happy that this was happening but we saw so many evidences of God's hand in the miracles: had we not put a towel over the wet spot, she would not have gone back to pick it up and discover the floor was even more wet; had we not been packing that room, we might not have found it until that night; had we not taken Financial Peace University about 12 years ago, we likely wouldn't have had the size emergency fund we have; if we hadn't had the emergency fund we would have had to go into debt; had we been in Ghana already, our renters might not have found the problem for a long time; had we been in Ghana, it would have been a lot harder to take care of and caused stress for our renters and us; had we not caught it when we did we would have had to make an after hours call. We were grateful that by 10 a.m. the next morning we had two new 50 gallon water heaters and the water was cleaned up and the carpet dry. Its hard to see the blessing and miracles in our trials but they are no less there. God is there. He wants to help us and bless us. He wants all of us to have joy. I believe we have to do two things: ask for His help and to get to work.