My Amazing Mother-in-Law

For the past couple of months I noticed that my water bill (I’m on the county water system) had been going up… way up. An extra 15 thousand gallons a month up.

Knowing that there were no leaks in my house, and not having seen any evidence of a leak outside, I thought naively to myself, “I’ll have to go down the courthouse and talk to the folks in the water department to let them know there’s something wrong with their billing system. After all, HA!, if I had a leak of 15 thousand gallons of water every month, surely it would be obvious, wouldn’t it?

So I procrastinated.

Then, suddenly something happened. Just in front of my house a little stream appeared. After a little probing of the ground, the stream became a pool. Then, after a little more probing, it became a small pond. Uh, oh… maybe I do have a leak. In the water main. I’ll call the water department, and they’ll come right out and fix it.

That’s not the way it works.

When I called the water department, I was informed that the homeowner is responsible for leaks in the water main that occur downstream from the water meter, as in this case.

After some encouragement and help from my in-laws, who were visiting at the time, I decided to dig down and try to uncover the leak. Pa (my father-in-law) was willing to fix the leak himself if I could dig it out. So I bent to the work with shovel and bucket in hand. Now, of course, this did have to happen during the coldest weather we’ve had in our area for three years. Digging through the slosh and mud proved to be beyond my skill. After a couple of hours, I had barely scratched the surface. The mud acted like a suction against my shovel and lifting it back out took tremendous effort with every scoopful. As I bucketed out the water in the hole, it streamed back in as fast as I could empty it. Soon I was out of steam and realized that it was time to call for a plumber with some heavy equipment.

I called a plumber who agreed to come out and size-up the situation. When he arrived early the next morning, he confirmed the obvious -- the water main had a leak. “That old blue pipe hasn’t be authorized for ten years, it gets brittle when it reacts with the chlorine in the water – no wonder you’ve got a leak.” The plumber pronounced his verdict. “You need a whole new water line dug from the meter to your house.” Estimated cost $3500-$4000. “We’ll dig a trench through your yard to the meter – of course we’ll probably have to take out some of your trees, and your fence will have to come down.”

Ouch! Couldn’t he just fix the place that was broken?

“No,” said he, “the only thing to do is to replace the whole line. No telling where the leak is anyway. That area where the water is pooling probably isn’t the exact location of the leak, and it would be too much time and effort to try and locate the actual break.”

The work couldn’t begin right away, as permits would be needed before work could start, and, anyway, he didn’t want to dig while the snow and ice were so thick on the ground. So off the plumber went, and off I drove to work, with a heavy heart, and no clue where I would come up with the money.

As I was driving to work, my cell phone rang. It was Pa.

“Ma (my mother-in-law) wants to take a shot at digging down to that leak so I can fix it.”

“She can’t do that!” replied I, “it’s 14 degrees outside, and besides she’ll hurt herself – I know. I nearly broke my back trying to dig that hole yesterday!”

“No, she’s really excited about this. She wants to do it!”

It seems that what fueled her enthusiasm was a passing comment from a man from the utilities tracing service. (I had called for a tracer to come out and mark the locations of my buried electrical lines, knowing that some digging would be needed, and not wanting to dig through a buried cables or phone lines). The utility man offered a plausible theory that suggested that the water line could well be located right at the bottom of the little pond.

After explaining all of this to me on the phone, Pa went on, insisting that Ma be allowed to try to dig down and find the leak, and avoid my having to put in a whole new water line.

“She’ll hurt herself… she musn’t do it,” I objected to Pa, “I appreciate her offer but this job is too big.”

“I’m telling you she’s excited about it. She can’t wait to start digging!”

“Look, that mud weighs a ton, and it’s a mess. Uh, you really think she can do it?”

“Yes, the leak is there if she can just dig down to it.”

“Well, look, I don’t want her to get hurt, but, uh, if she really wants to try, then go ahead, but don’t feel obligated. This job really calls for some heavy equipment.”

(I should point out here that dear Pa just had a knee replaced, and has a troubled back, or he probably would have been digging himself. Besides, bless him, he was already installing new custom cabinets at that moment in my laundry room.)

I hung up my cell phone, fully expecting a call back within an hour saying that the job proved to be too much, and she had to call it quits.

The call didn’t come.

Instead, I got a call several hours later from Pa.

“She did it, she’s uncovered the pipe about four feet down!”

“You're joking.”

“No, she did it. I’m going to Lowe’s to get the part I need to repair the leak.”

Another call an hour later.

“It’s all fixed.”

I was dumbfounded, humbled, and, needless to say, extraordinarily grateful.

When I got home from work that night, Ma was all smiles, and there was no more leak.

How can you ever thank people this wonderful. She even (claimed) her back wasn’t sore. How is this possible?!?! Boy, I sure felt like a wimp, but a very grateful wimp.

I wish there were pictures. She apparently was covered in mud and slime so thick her clothes were having a hard time not sliding off, and she sank into mud so deep she couldn’t pick her shoes back up out of the mud. She had handed bucketful after bucketful of mud up to Joe who would dump it out and hand the bucket back down to her.

The most gratifying moment was when the plumber called back that night to discuss the job and I told him his services wouldn’t be needed after all. I wanted to tell him, “my mother-in-law fixed it,” but I thought that might sound mean and too incredible to be believed. And, if you had seen the job yourself, you would have thought it incredible too.

Now that I’ve had a little time to reflect on the whole situation, I see it as a beautiful example of the kind of mercy God brings to those he saves. We are utterly unable to fix our own sin problem. No matter how hard we dig, the sin just washes back into the empty place again. We can’t save ourselves no matter how hard we try. Then along comes Jesus – God incarnate. He says, “here let me do it.” We say, “you can’t – it’s too big – I’ve tried – you’re too special – I’m not worthy that you should do that for me…” and so on. Then, not because we are worthy of it, but because he loves us and wants to do it, Jesus throws himself into the mess, and suffers all the agony himself. What can we say about so great a salvation as this?