Frozen Pipes, High Fevers and God!

I know what you’re thinking….Rox has finally gone off the deep end! What in the world do frozen pipes, high fevers and God have to do with each other?!

This past weekend I was supposed to be in Wimberley hanging out with girlfriends for a much needed girls only get away. Margaritas, shopping, dinner out and lots of girl talk were on the menu. All of us were looking forward to our “mommy timeout”.

Here is where things get interesting…

My oldest child, Harrison came home last Monday with what in the end, turned out to be flu. No problem….I reassured myself, he will be fine by the weekend. I busied myself with final trip preparations as well as keeping Harrison’s fever at bay. Did you know a twelve year old boy can eat his own weight in strawberry jello? Poor guy…that was the only thing his tummy could handle!

Fast forward to Tuesday morning… I am enjoying my coffee and watching CNN. The cute weather guy comes on and proceeds to talk about an arctic blast heading my way….hard freeze warnings…snow flurries…icy road conditions…”uh, seriously?” I ask him. That night at the dinner table, my sweet hubby says he really needs to head to Wimberley to prep for the nasty weather. Unfortunately, a board meeting at work Wednesday morning will keep him from getting to Wimberley until Thursday. Chris does the next best thing…his brother Cary (who is in Austin) will check on and secure the house…whew! Take that 16 degree freezing temperatures! I watched the weather the rest of the day with great apprehension…PLEASE do not ruin my weekend.

Wednesday morning only confirmed the inevitable…the “storm of the century” was barreling towards us and it was looking bad for the home team. I was still keeping my fingers crossed about my girls’ trip…what’s a little snow and cold weather…I mean, really?! We would just stay indoors and drink spiked hot cocoa :)

Chris skipped out of the office at lunchtime on Thursday and headed to Wimberley to assess the damages from the frigid temp the night before. As soon as I heard his voice on the phone, I knew it wasn’t good. Our well pump was frozen solid. He had to turn off the main valve to the house and pray the pipes wouldn’t break over the next few days. He told me I should “pull the plug” on my trip since we wouldn’t know if pipes were ruined until they thawed…which could be as late as Sunday. So…I sent out the e-mail canceling the trip. I felt so terrible about doing this, but all the ladies involved totally understood and we started looking at new dates for out get away…all was good.

Thursday was cold and blustery…the snow was heading our way…the kiddos were thrilled at the thought of snow day! Sweet Emily came home from school complaining of a tummy ache…within thirty minutes of coming home, the vomiting began and so did the high fever..102.4! My little pumpkin had wound up with big brother’s flu bug :(! At dinner, Chris says to me, “Em getting sick is God’s reason for keeping you from your girls’ trip.” I had to agree. There is no way I would leave one of my babies home sick with daddy just so I could party…not my style. As I found out later that weekend...Emily coming down with the flu was only part of God’s plan.

Here is the other piece of God’s plan … Chris went to Wimberley on Saturday to see if things had thawed out yet. While he was there he ran into our neighbor Jeff. Jeff had a “crew” cleaning up trash on his property…”is a pretty hard-luck, sad story” he proceeds to tell Chris. The “crew” is a man named John and his two children (ages 16 and 7). John is a carpenter/handyman by trade who has been hit hard by the recession. His wife recently left him and the children…taking the family car with her. After hearing this Chris went over to John and asked if he had time to remove some piles of debris from our property.

Long story short, John spent Saturday afternoon at our place. Chris was able to put much needed cash in this sweet man’s pocket. When Chris was telling me this story, I thought about how selfish I had been over my girls trip…I was furious with Mother Nature over ruining my weekend. I was angry that I didn’t get to spend the afternoon shopping at the outlet mall…pissed that dinner at Blair House was no more... and it was at that moment I “got it”. It was God’s plan to keep me away from Wimberley last weekend. If I had been there, Chris and Jeff wouldn’t have chatted…Chris’s heart wouldn’t have been touched by John’s story and hired him. My husband would not have had the opportunity to help this family in need if my girls trip had gone off as planned. Our family is so beyond blessed and Chris was so excited to get to help John and his family. In fact, Chris took John’s number in order to keep in contact with him.

Last week was full of frozen pipes, high fevers and chaos…all of which was part of God’s plan…and I (He) wouldn’t have it any other way!