When it rains........

     You finished that phrase in your mind with, "it pours", didn't you?  Apparently I am writing for an audience of pessimists.  All joking aside, I am going to try to avoid making this a pessimistic post.  Considering recent events in the Stanger household, a more fitting ending to the saying above would be......"clean your rain gutters."  I have decided that rain gutters are one of those necessary evils that often do more harm than good.  The only reason that I have even given rain gutters enough thought to come to this conclusion is because we had a very unfortunate event occur on Sunday morning involving one.  We were in the midst of the usual Sunday morning hustle and bustle.  After a fairly regular Sunday morning juice spill, Dirk headed down to the storage room for a roll of paper towels.  He there discovered a puddle of water in the center of the storage room floor. The next half hour or so was spent with a flashlight, studying every inch of wall in an attempt to discern where the water was coming from.  I should here insert that the previous day, it had rained torrents.  In fact, I had been so happy that it was raining on Ryan's birthday, just like it did a year ago, the day he was born.  It seemed so fitting and the Idaho earth was in serious need of a drink.  Back to the musty storage room, which was currently even mustier and much damper than usual.  Upon failing to locate the leak, Dirk and I decided we'd better be thorough and check the rest of the basement for water.  Seek and ye shall find........and we found a domestic version of the Everglades along the back wall, extending out about three feet.  Actually, Dirk first discovered our basement swamp as I was in the process of making sure Ryan didn't tumble down the stairs.  I will forever be impressed that the only word to escape Dirk's lips indicating that there was any sort of problem was, "Nuts!".  In fact, so mild was the expletive used, that I was surprised by the amount of flooding when I had contained our curious crawler and had come to survey the damage for myself.  As carpet squished beneath our feet, we knew we had to act fast.  Water was coming in somewhere, and we needed to figure out where.  There was also the small matter of turning the basement back into a dry land.  As luck, fate, karma, whatever you like to call it, would have it, we have a friend who lives almost directly behind us who happens to clean carpets for a living.  We made the call and our knight with giant water sucker arrived in his trusty white van in a matter of minutes.  Moments after arriving, our hero also helped us pinpoint the problem.  A broken rain gutter on the side of the house.  That's right........we were currently standing in our bayou of a basement because a plastic tube broke.  Unfortunately, Dirk and I had not put "clean out the rain gutters" on our spring cleaning and projects list.  This particular rain gutter was clogged with over a year's worth of debris and the onslaught of water pouring into it had nowhere to go.  So it found the weakest point, and out it poured.  Underneath it was a giant hole and a window well full of water.  Our friend sucked the water out of the window well and headed downstairs to start on the carpet.  My dad also drove in from Idaho Falls to help.
     While the three men ran about drying, fixing, postulating and pounding, there was still the small matter of getting myself and three children ready for church.  That's right......come hell or, quite literally, high water, we were going to make it to church on time.  Ryan was somehow managing to sleep through all of the chaos, and I decided it was an opportune time to take a shower.  As the warm water cascaded over me, I got to thinking.  About how much worse it could have been.  Events started playing over in my mind.  What if the juice had never spilled?  Dirk would not have gone downstairs to get the paper towels.  How much water would have poured into our basement from the full window well if we hadn't noticed it until that evening.....or the next day?  What if this had happened two weeks from now while we were in California?  We would have come home to a musty, moldy, very wet surprise.  In the past year alone, many homes in our neighborhood have had flooded basements which caused much more damage than our little flood.  As it was, the only things touched by the water were carpet and cement.  There are currently two giant fans still blowing the carpet dry.  But it is almost dry.  It is not ruined.  As I stood in the shower Sunday morning, I began thinking less of the flood in our basement and more and more of the flood of blessings which have rained down upon me.  I am blessed enough to have a home that can flood.  That house is filled with three beautiful, active, intelligent, healthy children and a husband who would do anything for me and those three children.  It is filled with glorious, wondrous chaos.  I have extended family nearby who would drop everything they have going on in their own busy lives to come and help us in our time of need.  I have good neighbors who are there in the blink of an eye in times of crises.
     Lately, I have been keeping a gratitude journal.  Each night, I try to write five things I am grateful for.  Some nights I climb into bed so exhausted that I neglect to write anything.  Other nights I climb into bed exhausted, with just enough energy to feel guilty and write five things such as.........a bed, sleep, sleeping children, night, darkness.  Other nights I write much more meaningful things.  On the night of the flooded basement, my gratitude journal entry read as follows, "Today I am grateful for:  1)"Heroes proved, in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life....."(it was Memorial Day weekend), 2)Friends, old and new, 3)Repaired rain gutter and drying carpet, 4)Second chances, 5)Healthy children."  Healthy children......as I type this, Ryan is in his crib sleeping off a nasty stomach flu that has been plaguing him for two days.  You know what they say......"when it rains, it pours."  The ubiquitous they may continue to say whatever they darn well please.  But I choose to say this, "When it rains, check your rain gutters, and more importantly, count your blessings."  As I have striven to focus on gratitude, I have come to realize that even in the most seemingly inconvenient and trying of circumstances, there is still a virtual flood of blessings filling my life.  Sometimes it's all about taking the time to notice them.  And sometimes, a flooded basement and a sick baby are just enough to remind me of how much I really have and how easy my life normally is.  A week from now I will walk out my front door, a healthy Ryan in his stroller, a perfectly dry, reassembled basement waiting for us when we return.  I will stroll around the neighborhood at a leisurely pace, with my three healthy children in tow, most likely in abundant sunshine, and I will do so with a renewed awareness of just what a blessing it is to be enjoying such a perfectly ordinary day in the life of Shannon Stanger.