Sewage/Sin Stench

About two weeks ago we noticed that our pipes weren't flowing freely. It was after a toilet overflowed and the kitchen sink stopped up for hours that we figured something was seriously wrong. So for about two weeks we have been washing dishes, and using the bathroom with bated breath as the water seemed to just barely seep through the pipes and into the sewer. The city came out and determined that it was not their problem to fix and so we called a plumber. Everything was all set up for him to come, and then scheduling became a problem. So for about a week and a half we have been piling up clothes and have been mindful that every drain, toilet, and water outlet in our home is connected to this plugged pipe.
Praise the Lord that our shower is not connected to this pipe or we would be really yuk!
So last night after eating pizza, we were busy washing some clothes, as we had run out of clothes to wear to work. ha! So after we finished the first load and as the second load was starting, Lexi (the guard dog) started barking down our dark hallway. We both cautiously eased toward the hallway and flipped the light switch on real quick. Then we caught the stench, and we were horrified as black, liquid, tissue riddled, stinky, raw, chemical polluted sewage was flowing out of our front bathroom and into Laini's bedroom.
After a quick moment of astonishment we got to work, calling the plumber again, lighting fragrant candles, and then mopping up the muck and mess. It took a while, but we finally got the wood floors back to their pristine condition, wreaking of the wonderful mixture of lemon Pine Sol and Woodwick candles! The Lord took care of us again, because this morning the plumber came after our clog catastophe and began digging up our front yard in order to fix our pipes. He said that roots had grown into the pipe and blocked the water flow, and he would need to dig up the whole pipe and replace the entire thing. He also said with a smile, "I'll put a clean out cap at the house just in case something like this happens again, then it won't come flooding into your house."
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!!!!!
As I stood and watched some of the fiasco... I was amazed at the process of having to clean out around the pipe, then cyphening all the water out from around it, then digging up the whole front yard, then replacing it, I mean we are basically getting a clean, new start!
I couldn't help but relate the whole ordeal back to our lives... we go through life thinking everything is good, we are good people, and have done nothing wrong. We don't have any sin to confess, "God I did pretty good today", while all along our hearts are slowly hardening with the blockage of the sin that sits and is left unconfessed, sometimes unnoticed. In fact most of the time we let it go so long that our hearts get so hardened to sin that we can't even feel the Holy Spirit's nudge anymore showing us what is sin and what is not. It seems as though His leading and guiding and consuming influence in our lives has slowly made its way to just barely seeping through. Better yet we are so stubborn that most likely we won't confess any of that until it comes boiling up and out into the open, just as the sewage went from the ugly yucky pipes that it's supposed to stay in to flowing through our nice pretty house. Our sin comes oozing out and is seen on the outside; only then is when we are bothered by our sins and forced to do something about them. Then we hesitantly take our sin mess before the Lord and He graciously digs around in the muck and the mire and saves us from the pit that we love to live in, just like that big hole in my front yard.
What's amazing is that we don't just need a cleaning out; We need much more than a snake run through our heart to break away the blockages of sin. We need a transplant. Just as the plumber is in the process of digging up our pipes and laying down new ones.... we also need God to remove our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh that seek and desire Him.
We need a new start, and by His grace we can have one! Praise the Lord for His grace, compassion, and mercy that are new every morning.
It's funny how the little, ok, or not so little things in life (like a blocked sewage line flowing into your house) can remind us of the salvation of our Lord! Oh that we would be able to look at all of life through lenses that have Jesus Christ before us always, always living before His face.
Coram Deo...