Swimming by the SPIRIT- ?

We kept a junk room in the basement; This is an understatement. A small path,- through knee- high piles of art supplies, books, boxes of elementary, high school and college keepsakes, letters photos, baseball cards, children's artwork, and household cast off furniture,- allowed one brave bushwhacker to cautiously navigate her way to the washer and dryer in the room behind. This 10 x 15 foot warehouse had been collecting precious paraphernalia for the last 10 years, ever since we moved into the house. Sadly, it reminded me of my childhood bedroom, only with more mountainous piles and no bed. When my 13 year old suggested spending last Thursday night on the "family project" of cleaning out and organizing the junk room - an overwhelming flood of exhaustion descended upon me at the mere thought. "Tonight, Daddy and Elliott are watching MSU basketball finals, and that room needs more than an evening; it needs the WHOLE family giving a concerted effort for a couple of Saturdays," I discouraged. Her face set like flint, Kyria persistently pressed on, "we could at least get started; I'll do it myself." More back and forth bantering filled the kitchen, as I tried to dissuade her from taking on an insurmountable task, which would inevitably drag me into more work. Finally, I gave permission for Kyria to begin, while I proceeded to make dinner. She wasn't amid the mess 10 minutes, when she hollered up, "Dad, quick - there's a funny sound down here." By the time Kevin bushwhacked his way to the closet at the far side of the room, moved boxes and shut off the spraying water supply (this is where the water main enters our house,) a thin flood had filled the closet and was spilling into the room. Towels safely absorbed the mess before the puddle destroyed anything important, and visits to our neighbors' procured pitchers of water needed to finish dinner, while we waited for a Board of Water and Light worker to arrive (thankfully, the spraying pipe flowed from their side of the meter.) While we waited, we marveled that we had been home, not out for the evening, or in even Florida, which would certainly have allowed our entire basement to fill like a giant swimming pool. At the rate of our junk room "shower" pouring into the room, our trash and treasures would have sunk within a half hour, if nobody had caught the leak. It took handy dandy BPW man only 15 minutes to arrive, and another 10 to replace the pipey gadget - a gasket. After all was resolved and while BPW man was leaving, we asked him, "What happened??" "Oh, common problem," he told us nonchalantly, "these things corrode and rust out over the years. This one just gave out and broke." "No way.. you mean, it was just it's "time"... right now, to BUST and spray?" "Yup." Well, it may be a common occurrence for gaskets to corrode and break after x -many years, but what seems uncommonly providential is Kyria's sudden and unquenchable desire to clean the junk room at the exact minute the thing gave out, and began showering our basement. OR - maybe GOD's looking out for us, by prompting us to move in certain directions, or follow certain desires is not as rare as we may think. MAYBE, HE does this kind of thing often, and some times we sense HIS stirrings and sometimes we miss them. Maybe "walking by the SPIRIT," is no more mysterious than talking to GOD often, learning to recognizing the way HE speaks and following HIS gentle whispers - in our day to day lives. Most of the family was pulled into the Thursday night project, as it turned out, and Kyria diligently continued it on Friday. About a dozen bags of garbage were generated and in the end we reclaimed one cleaned out art and crafts room. The more significant gain of the weekend is a lesson in sensitivity to the "nudges" of GOD. In our case, we're very thankful Kyria was "walking by the spirit," instead of "swimming by the spirit."