You just never know, you know? You can predict predictions and assumpt assumptions, but chances are you are going to be wrong. This is especially true when it comes to home repair.

Now before I begin my latest saga in home repair, let me say that this story carries with it a great sense of comfort and relief — now that my therapy is over and the drugs have kicked in. Actually the comfort comes in the fact that professional type peoples run into the same kind of crazy problems that us desperate do-it-yourselfers do. Let me explain.

The MacDonald clan lives in a semi-detached dwelling. This of course means that another clan shares the greater structure that makes up the entire scope of our grand abode in all of its sundry splendour.

Well, the other clan had subterranean moisture issues (which is, the politically correct term for a leaky basement). They dug things up, did stuff, covered it up, found out it didn’t solve anything, so they dug things up again and ended up having to call in a plumber for part of their work. This offered them the opportunity of putting in a new water service pipe and not have to pay as much as they would normally since a goodly portion of their front lawn looked like an overly caffeinated atomic gopher had gone to town.

Zoom ahead to early evening. On the MacDonald side of paradise there is a knock at the door. Seems the city is there and they are going to replace our pipe from the far curb to the edge of our property for free. How could we refuse? What I didn’t know at the time is that this offer was made available because our neighbour’s plumber cut our water line by mistake. (It’s nice when someone else’s mistake works in your favor!)

Now comes our part of the equation. After finding out that our service pipe was lead and that it was at least 80 years old, I saw the opportunity to have a plumber come in and run new pipe from inside our basement to the new service the city was running. I was excited at this windfall—especially when I can sweat greater quantities of water than our upstairs bathroom tap can produce given the same period of time!

Well, what was estimated to be a three-hour job, ended up being an eight-hour job for two plumbers and an all nighter for me since somehow our plumber struck water and our basement started flooding. Note: not of this has to do with anything I did (this time). Thankfully our plumber lent us his brand new pump, but I had to continue monitoring the situation all night. In the morning, the city came and dug some more and found out that our neighbour’s plumber installed the new line and then cut the old line without turning it off—thus all this city water was just running underground. The city was wonderful and they fixed everything. All our prayers were answered and believe me my whole day and night were one ginormous prayer.

Interestingly enough, I couldn’t understand why all this stuff was happening at the time. Where was the water coming from? Why all these problems? What was going on? Turns out that the fact that our plumber just happened to hit the pocket of water was a bonus, not a curse—although I didn’t look at it that way at the time. If he hadn’t hit that water, everything would have been covered up and this water pipe would have been pouring water at the base of our foundation without anyone knowing it—not good!

Sometimes, what seems like setbacks and bad luck are really blessings in disguise. This problem had to be uncovered before it created bigger, more expensive problems. But, from my limited perspective, I just wanted it to be covered up and to go away. God knew better! He wanted things right. He wanted things fixed. He was looking out for us but it sure didn’t feel like it at the time. I guess that is the realty of this thing called faith. No matter how much we know there are still times that our circumstances stretch our trust—that’s why they call it faith. Now excuse me as I go get my skin ripped off in a shower with REAL PRESSURE!