Floods.

This is a toilet on the second floor of our house. No surprise to anyone regarding what it is.

While certainly necessary, this household utility has become an unfriendly foe – enemy even, at our home for many reasons. Namely, it overflows.

“User error,” my husband claims.

This weekend was one of those “user error” weekends. Just as we finished pouring our relaxing (HA) cup o’ vanilla bean brew and stirred the flavored creamer in our oversized mugs, we heard the jolt of one of our loving children's voices yelling from above, “HELLPPPP! I think the toilet might be overflowing!”

Knowing our children often have issues with toilets and clogging, neither of us jumped to our feet. (With multiple children our nerves have become dull to emergencies, perhaps). However, hearing the BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP from the water alarm put a spring under our fannies.

OH, the rate of water output! Water, water pouring everywhere. Where was the shut off valve, anyway?! “Grab the towels!” I shouted as the kids stood staring, frozen, as if they were watching a Sci Fi movie. Water continued to pour E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. Water in the closets. Water in my sons’ rooms. Water in the hall. Water pouring down, down, down and all around. The towels couldn’t keep up and neither could we.

Floods will do that. They pour down and out and all over, leaving their mark behind (rippled floorboards, anyone!?).

For us, it was a couple of flooded rooms (not to mention children who are now terrified to flush).

But all that water got me thinking about the other kind of floods, too.

Floods of Sadness. Our community has been surrounded by much sadness recently. Maybe it’s that we’re all getting older or maybe it’s that we’re becoming more introspective or maybe it’s that life is getting tougher. Any or all or none, I’m not sure, but the grief and sadness crashes like a tidal wave that just keeps pounding. Losing a child to cancer, losing a mom and wife or a father and husband, diseases and terminal illnesses, these are floods that no amount of towels, sandbags, or levies will stop. Grief and sadness and loss are like that. They flood and there's no stopping them.

Yet just when the floorboards are curling and the house seems to be sinking from the can't-stop-it flood of sadness, a new kind of flood begins. A Flood of Goodness.

Often it is the most difficult, trying, and even gravest situations that propel us to move beyond ourselves - extending ourselves, flooding others with genuine goodness, offering meals, childcare, carpool rides, and friendship to those experiencing life's tragedies. And sometimes we even offer these acts of goodness to complete strangers. When we put on our rain boots and wade into others' flood waters of grief alongside them, we take on some of their pain - yes. But we are also blessed as we serve them. It is as if the flood waters of their hurt and our outpouring of love somehow mix. We share grief and love together …. both burden and blessing. Neither cancels the other out. But sharing the flood waters does something powerful to both the receiver and the giver.

Yes. There are floods -- the natural kind of floods caused by rain (and toilets - if you live in our house).

And then there are the human kind of floods. Flooding from our hearts to serve, care, extend grace and love when it's needed most in a world where the flood waters of sadness seem to be rising higher every day.

The toilet flood this weekend was a lesson far beyond mopping and cleaning. It reminded me of overflow and the importance of floods. Floods of Goodness.

Love,