| In Hot Water Again... |
 |
 |
 |
| Dr. Chuck Terrill |
|
My three children and I once drove through a little town in Eastern Kansas. It had two water towers. Instead of having the town's name on the water towers, one simply read “HOT.” The other tower was labeled “COLD.” I thought is was humorous, and said to my kids, “Every community should provide hot and cold running water to its residents.” Our daughter, a kindergartner at the time, asked me, “Does our town have hot and cold water.” I laughed. “Do you get to take a hot bath at our house?” I asked her. “I never thought about it before,” she said. “Well, yes. I guess I do,” she answered. That was the end of our discussion, but as I watched her face in the rear view mirror, I knew that she was mulling it over. It wasn't too long after that and a spring thunderstorm knocked our electricity off. I checked our breaker box, and everything in there looked fine to me. I hollered up from the basement, “Sarah, check out neighbor's houses and see if their lights are on!” “O.K., Daddy,” she hollered back down the stairs. When I came up from the basement, I asked the five year old for the verdict. “Daddy, no one has any lights on,” she said. “Well, it is not just us, I guess. No one has any electricity. We will just have to wait until the city electrician gets the problem fixed,” I replied. Sure enough, in about an hour, the lights came back on again. A couple of weeks went by, and Sarah announced to her Mother, “Mom, you need to cal the city water company.” “Why in the world would I call the water company?” her mother asked. “We don't have any hot water!” she declared. “I went next door and asked Bonnie, and she does have hot water. It must just be us.” “Where in the world did you get the idea that we got our hot water from the city water department?” Mary asked her. “Daddy told me,” she said. “I should have known.” That was my wife's usual response. Just then, the phone rang. Mary answered it, “Hello?” she said. “Hi. This is Bonnie, next door. Do you want to borrow some hot water?” she laughed. “I'll tell you who is in going to be in hot water when he gets home!” Mary exclaimed. “A merry heart does good like a medicine” (Proverbs 17.22). |