Frozen Pipes (and more)

Here's Friday morning, 9:45 am:

I shout down the stairs: "Cor?  Did you do something to the water?"

He shouts back up to me: "What?!"

We don't have water in most of our house again until 11:45 pm, when the ice in the cold water pipe breaks loose and the faucets gush.  The ice in the hot water pipe scares us--it trickles, fades, and vanishes--before it finally streams through the faucets at eight o'clock, Saturday morning.

In the meantime, we worry that our pipes are cracked and the thawed water will leak out of the walls of this house we love so, so much--this seemingly perfect home.  We get help from parents and family friends and, finally, with the space heaters generously lent to us, with the heat turned up, and with very little sleep, we have running water in our whole house, and no leaks.

And I felt so much more grateful for everything after the water returned, but I also realized how I'd looked for the graces all through the twenty-three hours in which we felt quite certain that the pipes would thaw and our house would flood.  Two sinks and one bathroom worked the whole time.  A friend made time to help us find the source of the freeze and loaned us space heaters.  My mother-in-law stayed up in our house, since she's on a night shift schedule anyway, so we could sleep without worrying.  And we learned how to prevent frozen pipes before the winter storm we're expecting tomorrow night.

And I am so glad that I have been learning, bit by bit, to count it all grace.