Every Little Thing by April Jeppson

 

I don’t know about you, but I require white noise when I sleep. All of our bedrooms are down the same hallway. As a light sleeper, I can hear everything. We leave the bathroom fan going all night to drown out the sounds. Kids rolling over. Kids sneezing. Heck, sometimes I can hear my kids breathe, and it wakes me.

So travel back with me a few years. It is the middle of the night and a popping sound coming from the bathroom woke my husband and me. He asks me if I heard that. I tell him it is nothing, roll over and try to go back to bed. My husband will not let it go. He feels compelled to go check it out. At this point, I do not care what he does. I am tired, and that bathroom fan makes funny sounds every once and awhile. No big deal.

So he tiredly walks into the room and then almost immediately calls out to me. The sound in his voice makes me leap out of bed. Before I even get there, I can smell the smoke. There are towels everywhere. He is snuffing out the last of the fire by the time I get there.

Our fan had started on fire. By the time Brian got to the bathroom, there was melted plastic dripping from the ceiling fan. We have a shelf behind our toilet that holds our towels. There are some wicker baskets on this shelf as well. The molten lava from the fan vent was dripping on the towels, the toilet seat and these baskets. The baskets were on fire when my husband had entered the room.

At the end of the day, we needed to buy a new vent fan and a toilet seat. So, as scary and intense of a situation as it was, it turned out fine. We are very aware of the fact that it might not have. It could have ended horribly.

Brian and I were both awakened by the same sound. I am awakened all the time by all sorts of sounds in the middle of the night. It is the burden of being a light sleeper in a house where I’m surrounded by children. My husband isn’t as easily woken up as I am. I was not sure why my husband felt the need to investigate, but he did. I did not and he did.

When I asked him later about it, he said he felt compelled. He initially closed his eyes and wanted to go back to sleep, but the thought kept pestering him. What if it wasn’t just a sound? What if there was really something going on that he needed to fix or take care of? He couldn’t shake it, so he got up to see. And boy was he glad he did.

How many times have I had a thought pop into my mind that I couldn’t shake? Something simple like “I wonder how so and so is doing?” Then it’s followed by another thought, “I should reach out to them.” But then I never actually do anything about it. Maybe I’m busy at the time, maybe I forget. Maybe the thought crosses my mind three different times, and each time I think it’s just a dumb thought and I shew it away.

But what if it’s not? What if that feeling we just can’t shake is bigger than just a thought.

My husband acted on one of these feelings, and he not only saved property, but potentially our lives. It gets me thinking about how often I feel prompted to do or say something. How important it could be for me to act on that feeling. I will never know the full ramifications of my actions. But my gut tells me that when we follow through with these actions, there may be people who benefit.

Albert Lean April Jeppson is a wife, mom, coach and encourager of dreams.