Years ago, we lived in our first home in Florida. It was perfect and tiny and full of love. 998 square feet of love to be exact. My whole house was visible from one spot - except the laundry. Due to the tiny nature of our home, the washer and dryer were in the 1 car garage - approximately 15 feet from the door into the family room.
One day, I layed a big blanket on the floor in the family room and put some toys on it and scattered cheerios around it to give the twins something to do while I rotated the laundry. Clothes from the dryer into a basket, clothes from washer into the dryer and start a new load. That was it. 4 minutes tops. And I was back in the family room to check on my 16 month old twins. How much trouble could they get into in 4 minutes with an expertly arranged minefield of food and toys to distract them?
Here I must back up a bit and explain that we were poor. Very poor. Do-daycare-out-of-my-home-to-exist kind of poor. We were in dental school and desperately trying to avoid taking out student loans to live. We had just finished 4 years of dental school, 2 years of residency and had 3 kids. Things were super tight and we had scraped together every penny we had to replace the carpeting in our house order to get top dollar for our tiny love shack. We placed it on the market and luckily it sold quickly. A few weeks from then we would be closing on the home and moving to Arizona.
Now you can understand why I had placed a BIG blanket down for the boys to play on. Brand new white carpeting. It looked magnificent and quite honestly may have been the single reason the house sold so quickly. It was beautiful.
After doing the laundry, I walked back into the house and to my horror saw Colby sitting on the floor (NOT on the blanket) and Connor above him pouring a blue liquid over his head. No joke. I can't even make this stuff up. As I surveyed the scene, I saw blue footprints around the dining room table (which was on the carpet) and continuing on to the front door and back. Colby was sitting in a foot wide puddle of green stuff. His legs were covered in green and the blue liquid that covered his head was dripping off his chin making pretty blue spots on the carpet. What in the world was going on?!? and what was this blue and green stuff? I picked the twins up and dripping blue and green, raced them to the bathtub. As I began rinsing them off, I realized that it didn't come off... It was ink. In terror, I bathed them as best I could and sternly put 2 blue/green aliens in their cribs for a nap to avoid further contamination and to keep from killing them.
Like in a horror movie, I went back to examine the scene of the crime. HOW had this happened? What was it? Where did it come from? Piecing together the clues: The bottom drawer of James' desk was open. There was a small cardboard box next to the drawer. There was a bottle of red ink still inside and instructions on how to refill your printer's ink cartridges. And 2 empty bottles of ink discarded in a mess of puddles and footprints. They were 3 oz bottles with a capped tip. I had no idea they existed. I had no idea they were there. I HAD NO IDEA. But my boys found them and in 4 minutes had played Jackson Pollack on my carpet. I was beside myself with fear knowing that we had spent all our money on the carpet and had none left over to replace it. And the house was already sold.
I sat and sobbed in the middle of the colorful war zone. And then prayed. And then cried some more. James was in school. I had no family near. I was alone and close to a meltdown. Then I prayed some more and got up. I found the phone book and began calling carpet cleaners.
What's on your carpet?
Printer ink....
Sorry - that won't come out.
Can you please come try.
No. or Not till tomorrow. or It's not worth our time.
Then I would cry and pray and call again.
I went thru 4 cleaners and on the 5th I couldn't handle it anymore. I bawled right into the phone. Crying I explained the whole story to the lady on the other end (who happened to be the carpet cleaner's wife). She had pity on me and told me she would call her husband and have him come over right away but that we would need to pay for the cleaning whether it came out or not. She told me not to touch it and to just hang on till he got there. Mercifully, he arrived in 30 minutes and got to work. He cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and treated and cleaned. I went to my room and prayed. "God, you know how much I need a miracle... please..."
An hour later he finished and the carpet was white. The ink was gone. My children were given a stay of execution. The only remaining evidence of the crime were the 2 blue/green aliens still in their cribs. I hugged the carpet cleaner and cried again. Miracles are real. I told him so. God heard me and answered my prayers. He knows me and let me feel the power of his grace as He fixed a problem that was too big for me.
Spencer W. Kimball once said, "God does notice us, and He watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs." That day I felt God watching over me and was so grateful to that wife for convincing her husband to come help me. I wonder if they realized that God had used them that day to bless me with a miracle? I did.
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