Time for application of faith principles.

The Creeping Oooze

So, we did a remodel on the bathroom like four or five years ago. Put in a new commode (head). I was a little worried about it all because the septic system plumbing to the outside is cast iron and yeah, old. A lot of flushing has happened there.

It had obviously leaked at one point because I had to replace a floorboard around the toilet when we remodeled which took me about a day.

When the plumber came to put the new commode on (an entire replacement upgrade toilet) I got a good look at the plumbing and hey, looked fine really. The plumber did the right thing by tightening a plastic flange inside the cast iron. I watched him do it and thought, “Hey, this guy knows what he is doing.”

Another detriment to the plumbing system is that underneath the house, where the plumbing lives, is a dirty, dank and dingy crawl space. It is chuck full of cobwebs and you need to squat down and crawl around on dirt ducking pipes to get anywhere worth going.

A beautiful place which I avoid for obvious reasons.

Well, like last Spring some wonderful “ooze” appeared from underneath the new tile near the toilet and the tiles appeared to move a bit.

My wife was concerned. Me, I’m like this can’t be nothing really. The job is fairly new, guy did the right job, everything is fine. I mean, if anything happened, well, it would have shown up years ago or the toilet would be slipping off or something more obvious. I blamed the previous owners and cleaned it up and thought nothing more of it.

More “ooze” appeared sometime later.

Now, the real problem, besides ignoring my “gut,” (which was telling me I needed to check it out a bit closer), the real problem is that I would need to go into the crawl space under the house. There is only one door access and of course, it is a dark, damp place full of insects that will tear you apart just to look at you. Some of them are ten feet tall and related to snakes. The access door to the crawl space, however, is right by the commode that was giving us the problems.

After the wife bothering me to check it out, I did stick my head inside the trap door that leads to the crawl space and could see the floor beam that supports the commode in question. It appeared to be rotting. I placed my rose-colored glasses firmly on and told my wife that it was just coming up from what was left over from the last rebuild. (If I’d have really thought it through at all, this actually makes no sense. But do notice how I will do a lot of justifying to escape actually having to deal with a dank, dirty, large insect problem.)

I got all upset with my wife. Of course I got all upset with my wife. That’s what wives are for! Blamed her for all sorts of things that weren’t true but mostly just wanted her to quit bothering me about it.

It is important to note that what I blamed my wife for was, in truth, how I was acting. If the problem is a sticky wicket, one we really don’t want to deal with, then for sure, I’m will be just detailing to another person the thing I am in denial about.

It takes courage to see ourselves in the shining light of reality. In Truth.

More ooze. Double in volume.

I am in denial. I am blaming the wife because she is pointing out the obvious. I am not happy. I refuse to listen.

Everybody does this sort of thing from time to time.

My wife is patient with me and yeah, the ooze just keeps on oozing.

Time passes, I do get some time to check it out and the worst nightmare comes true: like the toilet has been leaking from its base alright. Like for a good three or four years! Who knows, maybe it started leaking a month after the install.

Notice a couple of things: I put my faith in man. The plumber in this case. Not that the plumber wasn’t competent, it is just that the laws of nature and God’s plan are much more relevant.

Two to three square feet of the sub-flooring, along with everything above and below it, has sewage water rot. The home’s floor beams themselves are also on the rot. You know, the wood that keeps the house from caving in.

I don't really panic though. I mean, it's been that way this long, what's another week or two? I also figure I'll need like a day or two to actually begin fixing it.

I pull the toilet and find that the plastic flange inside the cast iron pipe had cracked. This is a good thing because hey, that is the culprit. Always nice to know what the exact problem is. Really though, I need a plastic tube going into the septic system or yeah, will probably happen all over again.

This is the problem with self-deception. This is the problem with thinking things are fine. When really, the TRUTH is something different.

But here is some good news. After thinking to myself that I’m just demeaning myself by being honest with myself, it has become a good lesson in redemption. 

You see, I was being stupid. I had it wrong. Please, somebody point it out to me, even if I don’t quite want to hear it.

The wife and I are working together to rebuild the place (there has been a few disagreements, but that is part of what it takes to redeem things) and I don’t know, I got to buy new tools. Plus, a couple of miraculous things happened that will make the final product that much better. Don’t really have time to go into it now.

We all love to deceive ourselves from time to time. It’s part of being human. You can have a good “sense” of it, but it will be countermanded by difficult circumstances.

It did me for like several years.

Now, people will read this and give it a nice, mental assent, but such thinking really doesn’t cut it. Just an intellectual assent to the problem made me not want to check it out. In my heart, my emotions, I do know that there is nothing I cannot solve. This is because my faith is such that it will deliver the goods every time.

I won’t deliver the goods. That is arrogance. What I put my faith in is what I believe will do it. This would never be myself.

Ever.

That kind of belief makes me want to solve even a creeping ooze problem.

The funny thing about courage is that once you simply admit to the obvious, the truth, well, solving the problem or changing things for the better isn’t that difficult. You always kind of wonder what you were afraid of once things start going in the right direction again.

That’s just a bathroom floor. Things in life are much more complicated and serious than that. I’d say it takes courage, but really, it takes correct faith based on Truth.

And that is why it makes all the difference in the world what you put your faith in.