From Flooded Floors to Renewed Minds: Embracing Grace in Everyday Inconveniences

A few days ago, the entire front of our apartment and part of our bedroom flooded with water.

It had been raining and as a result, the drain in the bathroom stopped draining during my shower.

The place we are currently staying in short term, has a drain in the middle of the floor to catch water from the shower, rather than an actual shower door with a drain. And on a normal day, it works fine.

On this day, I was excited to have hot water and actual water pressure (it is hit or miss at times where we are staying) and so I was some what enjoying my shower and I had tuned out for a bit while washing my hair.

Then I opened my eyes and began noticing the water was rising up my feet and not draining and unfortunately it was a little too late.

I quickly turned off the water and then realized it started leaking under the door, into the front room, and into our bedroom.

So I gasped, and quickly grabbed a towel, covered myself, and while still dripping with wet (not thinking to dry off, just springing into action), I sprang out of the bathroom and into the kitchen to grab some towels to prevent the water from spreading.

My sweet husband looked at me confused from the couch and asked what was going on and if I needed help. I told him what happened and he went and grabbed the mop from our balcony to help. He started mopping the bathroom while I began cleaning the water in the bedroom (one thing I love about him is his patience and willingness to help).

Unfortunately, the water had even crept all the way into the bedroom and I could not see how far it went because the light in the bedroom went out and we have yet to find a light bulb that actually fits in the lamp (Trials of living internationally + not knowing where to shop at times, if you know, you know). Another inconvenience.

But I got to work anyways, walking back and forth from the bedroom to absorb the water with the towel, then into the bathroom to ring it out, while my sweet husband continued mopping and wringing water out the water from the bathroom into the mop bucket.

As an embodied Christian woman, which means I know that when I am feeling stressed, it is an opportunity to pause + tend to my mind, body, and spirit.

This prevents me from living constantly reactive in an inconvenient world and taken captive and driven by my emotions.

I often pause and notice my thoughts and how my body feels. It is a gift I now embrace because I spent years living disembodied and dissociated, and experienced a lot of pain, health issues, and made a lot of bad choices as a result of allowing myself to continuously numb out. (I share that as an invitation to start tuning in, because it makes a huge difference in your every day lived experiences!).

Back to the story.

On this day, in this moment, when I did this, I noticed my body had become tensed, my breathing was off, I felt irritated, and my thoughts had become negative. We have a mind body connection so this is not surprise.

I realized I had begun internally blaming myself in my head.

“Why didn’t I realize the water was leaking sooner?”

“Maybe if I wouldn’t have showered, this could have been avoided?”

“This is so annoying, why can’t the owners just fix this?”

Wild how we tend to spin into shame or blaming our selves (or others) when we are stressed or inconvenienced, right?

But then, as I continued wiping the floor and wringing out the water, I was offered an invitation for a shift in thinking, when an image of a memory of my mother came to mind.

I imagine it came to mind because I had been contemplating on this memory of her the day prior.

I also imagine it came to mind because grief is funny like that. In the past when I was inconvenienced for example, I would call my mom to vent. Inconveniences seem to result in missing her more.

Now that she is gone, I very often internalize inconveniences, rather than metabolize them or allow someone to bear witness with me. Which is fine, until its not, and you explode or break down physically one day because your body does not have the capacity to handle + contain emotions and if you are not releasing them, you’re storing them until you can’t anymore. This is a biblical concept and rooted in both physiology and psychology.

Anyways, this image was of a time when I was younger. My mom, brother and I were all standing in the kitchen and he dropped a cup of water and it went all over the kitchen floor, and she paused, smiled, then she grabbed a towel and bent down to clean it and while doing so she said, “that’s okay, the floor needed cleaned anyways, it happens.”

And I remembered in that moment what it felt like in my body to witness that encounter. The relief I felt that my brother was not in trouble, the love, patience, and compassion that my mother embodied. That moment felt warm and safe.

So I took a moment to tend to myself with this memory, while I was wringing out those towels and dirty water. And in between, I offered myself the same love and compassion that I was able to bring to mind from this memory where I witnessed her embody it towards my brother.

As I grabbed another towel to soak up more water from the bedroom floor, and wiped it across the floor, I thought to myself, and offered myself the same grace and compassion, “that’s okay, this floor probably needed cleaning any ways, it happens.”

I gave myself a moment of tenderness and compassion and as a result, like the big body of water on the floor was shrinking by being mopped up, and wrung from the towels, the blame I felt was shrinking, and melting away.

The irritation I felt melted away.

And my mind and body softened.

And I was able to see the experience with new eyes.

Had I not had this experience, this small moment of inconvenience of my shower overflowing, maybe I wouldn’t have had this opportunity to savor a memory of my mother and receive the felt sense of relief, love, comfort and compassion.

Thats the beauty about building the capacity to pause vs react. And the power of being able to tend to ourselves without bypassing our needs, but also move into a place of growth and healing instead of staying stuck and spinning in negativity and the same emotional patterns.

When we experience inconveniences, the enemy loves it because he knows our flesh is strong and often wants us react impulsively and when we do not have the capacity to handle annoyances, we can very easily be pushed into negativity, resentment, feeling constantly annoyed, on edge, and irritable and it comes out in our actions and encounters with others (we blame, we shame, or we avoid + shut down).

But very often it is in the moments that we choose to pause, and accept the invitation to tend to and refine ourselves, and grow our capacity, the Spirit will invite us into a moment of sanctification, a prompting to put a pause on old patterns and to choose to create new ones, by making new choices, which creates new neural pathways, and leads to different actions, responses, and outcomes.

He will always provide a way of to escape the temptation of the flesh, and gives us opportunities to grow our window of tolerance to handle every day stressors, but sometimes we miss it when we are living reactively and on edge.

He will provide a new way of seeing life and beholding the opportunities that lie in our every day experiences before us, and invites us to do so with Him, rather than constantly becoming taken captive by our emotions and living reactive in a broken and fallen world.

What opportunities wait for you today?

What shifts wait for you today?

What mindset shift could God be inviting you in to today?

I hope this inspires you to take time to notice.

Romans 12: 1-3 " I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Curious about what it means to live as an embodied Christian woman?

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