I Didn’t Think The “Wet Lands” Meant My Basement

It sure has been a wet spring where I live. There have probably been years where we’ve had more moisture in April and May, but I can’t remember any.

It always strikes me that when you have a record-breaking day, it is only record-breaking to a certain point, like “this is the hottest day on record … since 1923”, or “we haven’t had this much snow for 31 years”, or “this is the most rain we’ve had since Noah finished building his ark”.

It seems that with weather there is always a day somewhere back in time that was cooler, hotter, wetter that what we are experiencing today.

But I will say that, in the last month, my sump pump has NEVER gotten as much exercise as this … period.

I probably I need to qualify that too, however; we’ve only had the sump for 8 months.

We’ve lived in our home for 21 years, and when we bought the house it came with a sump pump in the basement.

I was not too familiar with sump pumps, having never lived in a house that had one before. So I didn’t pay too much attention to it.

For several years it would turn on and suck some water from the reservoir in the corner of our basement spare room. Any time I got to see it I was amazed at how fast the water shot out of the tube.

I remember one time being on our deck in the back yard and a firehouse volume of water came shooting out of the tube that extended from our house’s foundation.

It truly was remarkable.

But for many years I just forgot about the sump pump. I don’t think it did any pumping for years. I lost track of the last time I remember hearing it work.

One time we were looking at that area of the house and I tried to manually get it to pump. There was nothing; it didn’t work at all.

I figured that it was old and had stopped working due to lack of use. It had been that way for years.

Every once in a while we would get some moisture in our basement, but I never equated it to the sump pump not working.

This past fall, we took a look at our sump pump again and, sure enough, it still wasn’t working.

Now I’m not sure if the weatherman was warning people of a wet fall or not, but for some reason Lily and I thought we should replace our sump pump with a new one that worked.

I bought one, installed it, and I think it worked a few times last fall.

But that was nothing like this spring! We had a stretch of about 5 days of solid rain in which our sump pump came on every 2 – 3 minutes.

If we hadn’t had that sump, I’m sure our basement would have been about ankle deep in water.

Back in the fall, the thought of buying a new sump wouldn’t leave us. It stuck with us until we bought one … I’m sure glad it did!

Here’s the thing: God is speaking to us all the time, but often we are good at ignoring or dismissing His voice. Start listening and paying more attention to His voice; you’ll be glad you did.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What thought have you had that you are glad you acted on? Leave your comment below.


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