Hot Water

Audio Version

We moved to Arizona from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015, and bought our first home here in 2018. The home we bought was just thirteen years old—brand new compared to the nearly 70-year-old homes we grew up in! 

When we moved here - there were a few things we had to learn quickly.

1) Everyone here pays for pest control. 

2) In the summer, the water in your outdoor hose will be HOT when it first comes out. Let it run before letting it touch your skin.

3) Even though the homes are newer - things don't last as long as they did in our older homes.

4) The water pipes are not laid deep enough underground, so people turn their water heater temperature down in the summer, because the 100 degree weather heats up the pipes and water.

For the sake of this newsletter - we are going to focus on #4. 

When we bought our first AZ home, three years after moving here, we realized the water temperature varied room by room. In most of the house it was fine, but my master bathroom had a hard time getting hot water. The shower needed the faucet to be completely in the red to get a nice warm shower. 

That said, we did still change our water heater temperature in the summer, as the showers throughout the house were too hot if we didn't. 

When last summer was coming to a close, and the temperatures were out of the 100s, I asked my husband to turn the heat back up a bit on the water heater, as the water wasn't warm enough again.

A week later, I had to shower shortly after my teenage sons and instantly regretted it! My boys' showers had used up all the hot water, and all that was left was freezing cold!

After two days of cold showers and my husband turning the water heater up multiple times, he went into the garage to move some things out of the way and check things out more efficiently.

He noticed the pilot light was out, so he tried to reignite it, but it wouldn't work. We knew we had pushed the limits on this water heater. Water heaters last 10-12 years, so we were now seven years past the expectation. To avoid further issues, we purchased a new water heater.

First, we checked the master baths sink faucet, and out came hot water! The boys showered next and said the shower got too hot and quickly. After my husband's shower, he agreed and turned the water heater down.

Finally, it was my turn! I turned on the shower, tempted out of habit to let it run for a few minutes to warm up before I got in. Then I remembered I probably did not have to, so with the knob smack in the middle of hot and cold, I jumped into the shower right away.

And it was HOT!

While I stood there attempting to get the right temperature of water, the thought occurred to me:

How high of a temp had we been running the old water heater at?

Had the hot water (and pilot light) been out all summer?

How long had we dealt with an old, struggling-to-work water heater that yielded mediocre results?

And quickly following that thought was this one:

What else have we been dealing with for so long that we have stopped realizing that it may not work as well anymore? Or not work at all?

What else in life have we settled for because we've forgotten what it was like to have better?

When we moved to Arizona, we left behind the church where we were saved. It was the church where we found Jesus, found a place to belong, healed from old wounds, and grew as new Christians. It was a small church, so we all lived life together like a family. We saw each other outside of church, got together for holidays, and our Sunday service was at 4:30 pm, so we often had dinner together afterward.

Needless to say, leaving there was difficult. It was probably one of the hardest parts of leaving California. And ultimately, it became the most challenging part of moving to Arizona.

How would we ever find a church that could compare?

Our pastor helped us find a new church to try, and while it was a great church, it was not a fit for us. We were used to a small and tight-knit community, while many of the churches in Arizona were mega-churches where finding your place in the community could be daunting.

We spent our first three years here in three different churches. Sometimes, we served; other times, we just attended. But after three years of feeling out of place, I told my husband that I was not sure if church was right for us anymore. I could not even pinpoint what these churches lacked or why they were not a fit for us. What was it we were even looking for? Because I had forgotten.

After a lot of prayer, an unexpected encounter at a women's conference at another church, and God doing what He does best - my husband and I found ourselves in a new community of Christians at a new church.

At first, it was everything we had been looking for. It was new and small, with a tight-knit group of people who did lots of stuff together.

But aside from that, it was nothing like our first church. It checked very few boxes on our wants list for a home church, but it did check more boxes than the other churches we had attended and served at.

So, we stayed. For three years, we stayed and served.

After the third year, though, we decided to step down from serving. The boxes that were sitting unchecked were draining us.

We needed to sit, be fed, and pray.

After four years in that church, we stepped away.

And finally, we made our way to a church that was recommended to us the first year we lived in Arizona but somehow never ended up at.

When we walked in that first day, we knew we were meant to be there. We decided to stay, sit in a season of not serving, and be fed and led in a way we hadn't in years.

We gave our time to God in a new way, not in serving but showing up and listening, and we got to reflect on the last four years (and the hard that came with stepping out of that season). We realized that while we thought we had found what we were looking for, in reality, we had settled.

We were dealing with things that weren't working and maybe hadn't ever worked. We had settled for unhealthy situations because they were "close enough." They were "better" than what we had been in because they checked one or two boxes rather than zero.

However, it wasn't until we fully stepped out of that church and that season that we could even see the full picture of the unhealth we had been living in.

It's been over a year since we went through that transition, and I have taken the lesson with me. I look at our lives continually, the ways we live and the situations we've become accustomed to, and ask myself:

Have we settled?

Are we accepting less than?

Should we, could we, be striving for more?

Have we made a decision that does not align with our core values, does not meet our needs, or is ultimately costing us more than it benefits us?

Not until I stood in that delightfully hot shower did all of this hit me. Who would have thought a burnt-out pilot light would bring such truth and understanding to a healing heart for Christ and His church?

So today, please take my lesson and ask yourself:

What is something you've been dealing with, settling for, that is no longer working as well as it once did?

Something that is no longer serving you, no longer benefitting you?

Something that is potentially even causing you harm?

Are projects in your home sitting undone, half-finished, causing you to live in chaos?

Are you in a dead-end job that pays the bills but is draining your motivation and joy?

Are you in a relationship that needs renewal?

Maybe you, too, need a new church or a new community. Or perhaps you need to get involved in the community at your current church in a new way.

Whatever it may be, I want to challenge you to look at your own life and see where you can make changes to benefit you and your family.

Because none of us should be settling for half our boxes unchecked and cold showers. 

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