lessons learned from a water heater

Our house is 500 sq. feet. A 10x50 single-wide. Only about half of that is space to share with guests (you know, living room and kitchen). Do the math, and then compute that we had 24 people in there a couple Thursdays ago. That's right: 14 kids/teens, and 10 of us adults. We were celebrating a neighbor's 15th birthday, and since she had invited guests, our house was filled with the sounds of girly giggles, and our walls were covered with posters of the Jonas Brothers (Ugh). It was chaos, and of course, we loved it. Thankfully, the night was warm enough for some of that chaos to take place outside:)

On a different note, I am always surprised at what avenues God chooses for character formation. This week: an outlandishly small water heater. The little round bucket of warm H2O that graces our bathroom closet barely stands as high as my knees. The obvious consequence of possessing such a shorty: there is not a lot of hot water to be had at the trailer.

While I was away for a year, my roommates got in a rhythm of morning showers. Leah takes a short one (the kind of water-saving shower she learned to take in Russia), and then Kim uses the rest of the supply shortly thereafter. Clearly, there is nothing left for little ol' me, and recovery takes at least 3-4 hours. It has been a source of frustration on and off, but I am pretty much adjusted to customizing my hygiene schedule to accommodate theirs.

Last Tuesday, I rode my bike to work. It was a sweaty venture and I looked forward to a shower when I got home at about 8:00. I walked in to see Leah doing dishes; danger, Will Robinson. Of course, this was a disaster that could be averted, as long as she hadn't been doing them for long (one good round of dishes takes the whole supply). "Wait! How long have you been doing those?" I asked. "Not long," she said. "Good, I really need a shower." Her head dropped a little, and she spoke a little more softly: "But Kim took a shower when she got home from work, so there's not really any left. It's still kind of warm, though."

I reacted nobly, of course: "What? That's cheating! I never get a freaking shower in the morning, and now I don't get one at night? I'm sweaty. I want to be clean. Are you freaking kidding me?!" I huffed and puffed around for a while, trying to calm down, knowing that a cold shower awaited me (remember, it's early April in Colorado, not the season for cold showers).

Slowly, slowly the Spirit called me back to my senses. "People are dying in Africa," I actually said out loud as I sat on the floor, "it's just a shower." (As if people aren't dying everywhere...but I was feeling overly dramatic, I suppose.) It's just a shower. Granted, I still uttered unpleasant words when I stepped into the not-so-hot water a few minutes later, and I mentioned my frustration to Kim when she got home from the date she had been cleaning up for. Character development is slow.

But really, it is just a shower. My life is infected with a million germs of entitlement, most of which I'm not even aware of; our trailer has a way of removing some of the blinders. To follow Christ wholeheartedly is to lay down all entitlements. I look forward to the day when it takes more than a shower to make me feel shafted.

Oh, character development. How I love thee.