Check the Filter

We’ve had a mystery in our house for the past week.

It started with my husband saying our electric kettle smelled awful, like a sewer. That confused me because I had been using it, and not had a problem.

[I also still have smell/taste loss from Covid, so I’m not an accurate judge. Maybe it did smell like a sewer. No idea.]

My first question to him was: does the tap water smell? Because I always fill the kettle from the tap, cook from the tap, fill the coffee pot from the tap…so it was important to me that the water not be sewer water… He said he never uses tap water for the kettle. So I had no idea what it could be.

I believed him, but since it didn’t bother or really affect me, I didn’t think anything else of it. Until last night.

I had a huge glass of ice water from our Zero water filter/dispenser and thought it was very refreshing. Our daughter Sia went to get one, almost took a sip, and said “Mom- this water smells like a dirty diaper!”

I took the cup from her and stuck it right under my nose. HUUUUGE sniff. Nothing. I told her I didn’t smell anything, and shrugged. (I had just filled up my second huge glass and already taken a big chug.) She said “Don’t drink anymore!!!”

I was kind of annoyed, because I had just added some flavor drops to it, and hated to dump them down the sink. She said “So you’re gonna risk your health for five cents’ worth of drops? Stop it.”

As she walked out of the room she said “Dad will smell it for sure.”

If you know my husband, his sense of smell is like a bloodhound. He sniffs everything, and can smell spoiled stuff, garbage, burning things etc. from a mile away. (If you know Gus’s super smeller, that’s Jimmy.)

So she went in the other room, gave him the cup, and asked if he could smell anything. His response was immediate and LOUD. “EW!! Where did you get that water???”

Yes, people. Our filtered water smelled like a sewer, apparently. And I had been drinking from it all week without knowing!!

We discussed when the last time was that the filter had been checked, and none of us could remember for sure. We’ve owned it for at least a year, and I have never changed the filter. Jimmy says he did at least once, probably within the last three months, but he wasn’t sure.

This made me think about my personal filter.

Am I taking in things that are causing sewer water to come out of me? Am I drinking stuff that has an odor, but I don’t even notice?

When someone confronts me about the smell of the water around me, do I brush it off, telling them it doesn’t bother me, or worse yet, that I don’t even smell anything???

When’s the last time I checked my filter?

Do I have the courage, when I realize someone else is drinking ‘sewer water’ to tell them, like my daughter told me, “Don’t drink anymore of that!!”

I shouldn’t brush it off when someone mentions the smell. Even if it seems like it isn’t affecting me. Even if I can’t smell it. Even if I’ve invested something in it.

If the person confronting you loves Jesus, trust them. Believe them. Check your filter, and if it’s dirty, dump out that water and start over with fresh.

It’s a good day to check the filter, my friends.

Psa 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Psa 119:9 BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
Psa 119:10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Psa 119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Psa 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.