Expecting the Unexpected
As I look back on my memories of the Hurricane Harvey experience I learned some very interesting lessons. Hurricanes are a disaster that I always veiwed as occurring to others. Personally experiencing the disaster changed me and our community. Sometimes headline making disasters can produce positive results.
There Is Often Value in the Unexpected!
After the storm, at least for a few weeks, in the city of Houston and surrounding area, all forms of anger, prejudice, and political protests came to an abrupt end. There was no mention of skin color, difference of language, or political bias. Those things were simply replaced with love of life and people helping their neighbors.
Witnessing True Love of Neighbors!
The afternoon following the beginning of the floods from the storm Vickie and I worked at a grade school with many others. The school was an assembly point for people who were being rescued from their homes by boat, taken to national guard trucks with huge wheels that kept the truck above the water level, and then brought to the school. When the people came off the trucks with trash bags full of their valuables we asked them if they had a place to go? If they gave us an address they were put in cars driven by volunteers who delivered them to the address. If the family did not have an address for shelter the driver normally said "you are coming to my home".
.We later learned that some of those people spent that night in the stranger’s home and some spent a week or more. At the end of that day we were told more than 1500 people had passed through the system that afternoon at that grade school. That line of cars never ended. We never knew how the drivers were directed to come to the rescue. No one ever said it is too hard or I need to be reimbursed. They just continued to fill in the line of volunteers.
GOD Tells Us To Think Beyond The Moment!
The scripture tells us that we are to take some time to just love one another and in James it says “So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free. There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you. “ My prayer is that somehow we never forget to learn from the times when we need God the most. I have determined, that I want to remember what it took to let people love one another and forget their differences. I am thankful for the experience of a flood when people truly loved one another.
In Him
Dean