A Constant Dripping

A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day.  - Proverbs 27:15

Ah, marital bliss!  I am so blessed to have an incredible husband who is my best friend.  He shares my hopes and dreams for the future, challenges me towards God's best, and is a fantastic father to our children.  As far as quarreling goes, we never quarrel; we have what we refer to as "intense moments of fellowship" over our disagreements which usually resolve themselves quite quickly.  In our marriage journey, the above verse from Proverbs has inspired me to use self control when I have been tempted to argue or disagree.  How annoying to be thought of as a constant dripping!  However, after our day here at the hotel in Bogota the Lord has given me a vivid example of just how bothersome that quarrelsome attitude could become.

Before you begin to worry about how we could have passed the homestudy with marriage problems, let me explain.  The bathroom in our room here at the hotel has a leaky ceiling.  There are so many leaks that the floor is constantly wet in so many places that we have put a few towels down on the floor to help the kids not slip when they go into the bathroom.  However, the wet floor and towels creates another problem: wet socks!  The ceiling has been dripping since we arrived and it wasn't even raining then.  It drips near the toilet so that you get wet as you go to the bathroom.  (Quite the mental image, I know.)  It drips near the sink so that you get wet as you brush your teeth.  And we found out this morning it drips in several places on the counter, so some of our bathroom bags were wet - nothing got damaged.

And when it rains...it drips faster.  We took a walk to the nearby supermarket this afternoon in order to get some Colombian pesos, cash a travelers check, and to try to find something stronger than sudafed at the pharmacy for my now raging sinus infection.  We accomplished the first two items on our list, grabbed a coffee because it started to rain, found out all the pharmacy could offer was sudafed with tylenol in it, and tried to wait out the rain.  When it looked like it wouldn't let up we decided to make a run for it - after all, it is only about 6 blocks back to the hotel and a block to the hair salon where the boys were going to get their hair cut.  In one block we were all drenched!  The boys got their hair cut and the girls dried off while we talked with the ladies who worked at the salon.  Then we all ran the last five blocks back to the hotel and took hot showers to warm up.  Our clothes are drying in the clothes dryer here, but our shoes are going to have to air-dry over the next several days in Pereira because they got sacrificed to the ankle deep puddles as we carried the children back.  We had quite a few giggles about run through the rain.  

Back to the bathroom - which is now sopping wet from the rapidly dripping ceiling, the four very hasty showers, and the dripping Americans who decided to make a mad dash in the rain!  I hope that I'm never like that constant dripping, and I'm thankful that God uses vivid imagery to remind me what to do when I disagree with my best friend.

Please pray for my sinus infection that the sudafed will start to do the trick and that the kids won't get sick.  Pray also for an easy flight tonight to Pereira.