Lesson Learned From A Broken Pipe

I was feeling pretty good this past Saturday morning. It was 9 am and we had already finished cleaning the house. The kids had been amazingly cooperative in doing their chores. Marshall had to run off in an hour for a baptism, but that wasn't a big deal because I was going to take Jacob for our Saturday bike ride while the older kids went to the church with him. I was pleased because I love it when everything flows along smoothly.

While Marshall was in the shower, getting ready for said baptism, I decided to rehang the coat hooks in the laundry room that Anna had knocked off that morning. A simple task of finding some studs and drilling the coat hanger back into the wall. Piece of cake, or so I thought. However, I quickly learned that the "stud" my stud finder had found was actually a water pipe, the main water line from the house shut off valve to the house. As soon as I drilled into the pipe, water started shooting back out at me! I immediately shut off the water to the house and congratulated myself for my stupidity. Poor Marshall, who was in the shower covered in soap, threw on a robe and came to investigate the reason behind the rudely abrupt end to his bathing. Upon inspecting the damage, he put on some clothes and went to Home Depot to get some supplies to fix the leak.

Fools that we were, we thought it would be an easy process to fix and trusted in the knowledge of the workers at Home Depot. I guess Marshall ran into someone who didn't know what he was talking about because we spent most of the afternoon trying to patch the pipe with the suggested Epoxy putty. Every time we covered the hole with the putty, let it harden, and turn on the water to the house, out would shoot water from that cursed hole. Sigh. We finally tried one more option, which we had hoped would work, but we couldn't get the leak completely stopped.

By this time we had had the water off all day in our house. We had taken a break to go out for lunch and run some errands, but we were feeling pretty hopeless. All of our plumbing knowledgeable guys in the ward seemed to be out of town. We were stuck and planning on camping out in Granddad and Grandma McConkie's house. But then one of our friends, one of those smart plumbing guys, made it back into town and came by to fix our pipe as he had become aware of our drama. He fixed it in a matter of minutes and water was once again restored to our house. Our hero!

I learned a lot from what happened yesterday, but the big lesson that will stick with my through the years, is the power of example. I had accidentally caused a big drama in our day. Going without water was not fun. I didn't do it on purpose, but, nonetheless, it was my fault. Yet not once did my sweet husband raise his voice at me, say a single negative word to me, or lose his patience with me, even though I had completely inconvenienced him. I had shut off the water on him in the shower and he had to rinse off with cold storage water in the sink. And still he smiled throughout the day and took all the drama in stride. His example spoke volumes to me.

There have been times when my life has been inconvenienced due to mistakes Marshall has made. We've even had the water off for half a day due to sprinkler repairs. And at those times I wish I could say I showed him that same mercy and kindness, but more often than not I was full of impatience, negativity, and frustration at the situation he had created. I know that my husband is naturally positive and for me it is more of a struggle to be so upbeat. But I learned from his example the power of mercy. How awful the day would have been had my husband been negative, rude, or belittling of me for what happened? He helped make a bad situation better by his choice to be merciful, to be loving.

I have a long way to go, but I am ever grateful for the quiet moments in which I am taught by Marshall's great example. He strives to be Christ-like and because he does, he is more often than not. It is my goal that I can remember the lesson learned by the leaking pipe and be better at choosing to show love and mercy to my husband and those around me, especially when circumstances get rough.