It’s the story we laugh about after time passes

I don’t know why I had to go through it. It was a day that I would like to forget. It came after some major victories in my life.

It leads me to believe that the biggest battles come at times after your biggest victories.

Some may say it is the enemy of our soul coming to take back the land we took in the victory. It may be. Or it may be that he just wants to replace the good memories with the bad.

On this day? Mission accomplished.

I was a young evangelist who had returned home to Minneapolis from teaching at a youth crusade in Illinois. The meetings in Illinois were life changing for so many kids and for so many families. I drove home through cloud nine.

As we descended to the reality of Minneapolis, my head came out of the clouds quickly as I found out that the three-bedroom home we were renting had been sold and we had to be out… immediately. I found out that the term “immediately” was by the next day.

It was July and the humidity and temperature in Minnesota were in the triple digits. You had to have a change of clothes just walking from the house to your car because things immediately soaked. Perhaps the word immediately is the key word for my column today.

On short notice in Minneapolis at the end of the month, apartments are endangered species and as a young evangelist, faith wasn’t acceptable as a security deposit for a nicer place. I found a place in Brooklyn Center. A second floor one bedroom apartment. And the air conditioner was not working.

The outdoor pool also had a dead duck in it and the gate was locked, so I figured it was not a good sign. I started departing farther and farther from the Sunday night chorus of “Oh Victory in Jesus.”

I took the apartment, signed the six-month lease, called all the friends I knew and of course, everyone was busy except this big tall Swede named Ole’ who had more heart than smart. (Yes, the names are changed to protect the innocent.)

The packing of boxes was frantic, just throwing things into the cardboard containers, no wrap. No time. Before it was all packed, we got a U-Haul and began loading. It only took four hours to load everything which I figure was a leftover miracle from Illinois.

When we got to the apartment, the first thing we unloaded was the king-sized waterbed. I asked Ole’ to put it together and begin to fill. I could see a cool nap in my future. I continued to carry boxes up from the truck. Three bedrooms full of “stuff” into a one-bedroom hovel. I fully understood at that moment what putting 20 lbs. of potatoes in a 10 lb. sack was all about.

Only two hours to unload. My clothes looked like I had jumped into the contaminated swimming pool out back and they clung to my body like heavy moist armor. Boxes everywhere, piled to the ceiling in the kitchen, the dining room, the bedroom. My wife and daughter were overwhelmed and were seeking refuge at her parent’s home. Oh, they were not going to be pleased to see such a lack of space in this less than high-brow living accommodation.

Ole’ and I got in the truck, cranked the air conditioning and headed back to the U-Haul rental place. It was actually a moment of peace. Ole’ who sang with me in the church choir said, “let’s sing a song…” and although I didn’t feel like singing, I knew that it was what was called for at that juncture. So, we sang at the top of our lungs, “Oh Victory in Jesus” – and actually laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation.

We decided to go back to the apartment and begin to further organize the chaos and perhaps get a cold Pepsi from the fridge.

It took every ounce of strength to lift my legs up those stairs yet again and I put the key in the door and pushed it open to what I thought would be chaos. What I saw was so much worse, but I don’t know what I could even say to describe the scene. Perhaps, “Oh the Humanity.”

As I looked down the hall, there seemed to be a three-foot wave coming at me with little shards of wood like tiny surfers hanging 10.

I closed the door. I looked at the number on the door. I confirmed the horror that it WAS my apartment.

I opened the door. The water was now coming out of the door and I confirmed the horror that the tsunami was inside my apartment.

I suggested to Ole’ that we get a board and dam it up. I suggested that we start bailing water. I suggested that we… well, it doesn’t matter as I turned to see Ole’ in shock with a gaping hole in his face where his mouth should have been.

I rushed to the bedroom and found an exploded waterbed. The side had blown out that I found out later, the extra screws in Ole’s pocket were the exact same screws that were supposed to go into that side bolster.

I ran to the bathroom across the hall and disconnected the hose from the sink and found out that Ole’ had left the water running. Originally a king-size waterbed has 235 gallons of water. I could only guess how many extra gallons had gone to the bedroom floor through the gaping holes in the bed liner.

It was hot. I was panicking. I grabbed my daughter’s diaper pail and began bailing into the tub. Just about then Ole’ answered a knock at the door and opened that door to a woman holding a red shoe with red dye dripping down her hand, sending expletives as if she was firing them from an AK-47 and it was then we realized we were on THE SECOND FLOOR.

Water had found its way to my new neighbor’s apartment below me. She resembled Welcome Wagon in no way, shape or form.

At that point I was standing in water up to my ankles. It was as if I heard a voice from that enemy of my soul on my shoulder and he said, “Now let me hear you sing that song you big talking preacher.”

Hmmm. I could down in flames or do use a weapon of praise. The next thing I remember was, “Oh Victory in Jesus… splash… my savior forever… splash.”

It was then that the woman who saw 4 feet of water in 101-degree heat and heard a lunatic, singing gospel songs in his bathroom… immediately fled the scene.

The journey from that point was brutal. The days seemed long. The living room floorboards had warped from the moisture and the humidity. The place resembled a sauna. The boxes full of unwrapped goods were soaked and molded almost overnight.

But something happened when I sang that little song. The nasty voice ceased. A clearer head prevailed and I realized that the testing of my faith was not whether I could sing the song on Sunday in church, but whether I could sing it in the midst of disaster… when I didn’t feel like singing.

When you sing in that place, there is immediate power. I love immediate. And how easy is it to bring it with something as simple as a song.