Nasty. There are just no other words to describe the situation. Nasty. N-A-S-T-Y. NASTY! Why does our garage floor appear to be excessively wet? I mean, I did park the truck in the garage when it was covered in snow, but how has the melted snow run all the way over to the other side of the garage? AND WHAT IS THAT SMELL?! It wasn’t until a day or so later that I bent down and looked under our Jeep that I spotted all of the wet, soggy, white paper. What is that? So, I backed the Jeep out and yep… it was toilet paper. Used toilet paper that is… floating in sewer water… that’s not Texas Tea! Our sewer line was plugged up solid and it had backed up out of the two garage drains. Perhaps you are like me and right now you are thinking, do garage drains run into sewer lines? Yeah… they’re not supposed to… but here is #59 of things-the-builder-did-wrong when our house was originally built.
So, Monday night found me going to ACE Hardware to rent a 100’ foot power snake (the longest they had) to see if I could unplug the… yeah, you know. It is 125+ feet from the sewer clean-out to our septic tank so I told Lauri, “I can pretty much guarantee that plug is less than 100’ down that drain pipe.” “How do you know that?” She asked. “Because if it is over 100’ we are TOAST!”
After about an hour of working that snake down that — did I mention the word “nasty” sewer pipe — I hit that clog at 90’. With a rather disgusting slurp, the garage drains instantly drained clear, and we once again were dumping the… you know… where it is supposed to go.
While I was glad to have cleared the sewer line, we still had a rather, yeah… nasty garage. I had to take a vacation day the next day and Lauri and I emptied the entire garage — cleaned everything — especially the floor… and put things away. Hey, on the bright side… we have a super-clean garage today! Now, I share these things with you so often so that when something difficult arises in your life that you have to deal with at least you can say… “Well, at least I’m not Steve McKnight… bless his heart.”
There’s just not much nastier than a clogged sewer line — except maybe, the human heart. When I was elbows deep in that sewer drain pipe I was reminded that as disgusting as that job was — it really doesn’t compare to how nasty God considers sin to be. Yet, the Nasty didn’t stop God from loving and saving me. David wrote, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.” Psalm 40:1-3a, 4.
Aren’t you grateful that the slimy pit, mud and mire of sin doesn’t stop God from reaching into it and rescuing people drowning in… well… nasty. As abhorrent as sin is to God, He still pulls us out of it. The Apostle Paul wrote: “God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
In Jesus Christ, God became the nasty, so that people could be cleansed! Hallelujah! Today, I echo David’s cry — “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord!”
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