Right before we went on vacation, we noticed a small drip in our closet….great. But we put a towel under it, called our landlady who also happened to be going on vacation, and we left for Seattle anyway. When we got back, the dripping had stopped, but we had extensive water damage.And then we saw our cupboard pulling away from the wall.Fantastic. All the while, since the leak came from a burst swamp cooler pipe, we’ve been unable to use our swamp cooler, leaving our apartment a murky, musty swamp of heat and water. So not only does it feel like a swamp, but it smells like one too.

Around this same time, we noticed that our fridge was getting less and less cold. Our food tasted lukewarm when we pulled it out. A few days later, everything went bad. We called again, but our landlady was on the other side of the country. We are sincerely grateful for her, however, since she handled all of this while on vacation; we got a new fridge, but only after all of our food had gone bad.

So our new fridge is in, but it looks like this: The truth is, we love where we live. We are going to fight tooth and nail for this apartment. Never before have we been so happy, and so well cared for by a landlord. There is still a lot of work to be done because we’re not really sure how far the water damage goes, but we’re confident it will get taken care of as soon as she gets back.

At some point, though, you start to wonder what you did in a past life to deserve this. It’s funny how these problems never seem to space themselves out; they always happen all at once, clamoring for your attention at the same time.

I don’t have any sage wisdom or advice, since I’m still struggling to deal with these sorts of things with any kind of finesse. I do know, however, from past experience and through faith, that these things always pass. And many times, the outcome is better than what you had before; our fridge is a newer, nicer model, and our wall will be fixed, perhaps with a fresh coat of paint. Life problems seem to sort themselves out similarly, and even if your external situation doesn’t change much, you will change in the process.