The Miracle of the Pipes

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book, “God Is in the Crazy (with astounding miracles and reflections on the peaceful life)”:

Katrina Ward has seen Heaven burst into her ordinary life on several occasions. Katrina is a licensed clinical social worker who I’ve known for more than thirty years. She has many stories to tell of God’s faithfulness. Here she tells one of them—about frozen pipes … and the breath of God:

“I recall one miracle that happened to me in 1983 when I was living in a small farming town in Oklahoma. My family lived in a mobile unit that didn’t have insulated pipes and we didn’t have the money to insulate them.

“The winter brought many snowstorms and then freezing ice blizzards. That’s when our water pipes froze. We didn’t have water to bathe, cook, or clean with. For two weeks, my mother, two older sisters, and I drove several times a day to a nearby gas station and filled up a five-gallon cooler with water.

“One day, my mother rushed out of her room to tell us God told her He was going to breathe life into our water pipes. We were commissioned to turn on every faucet in the house. So that’s what we did. Still no water, of course. That evening, we attended our mid-week church service and the pastor preached on “the breath of God.” That’s exactly what we would need for the pipes to provide water, and I remembered what my mother had said. Our family gleamed with joy and amazement. We suddenly had the faith to believe that God was about to do a miracle. Although the temperature hadn’t changed, when we arrived home, we heard water flowing. I know now more than ever that His grace is sufficient!”

My wife and I recently had lunch with Katrina and her mother, Martha. They shared more of the story. When they returned from church, the house was completely flooded, and it took them a long time to scoop the water out—but they sang praises all the while. They never did insulate their mobile home’s plumbing, but for the next six winters, before they moved somewhere warmer, the pipes never froze.

Photo from Wikipedia Commons; the Free Media Repository.