As the rains fall...

This is so hard to write.

To even process or begin to formulate how I am feeling seems like a struggle but I feel that I must try because it seems the Lord is prompting me to say something

When we first started hearing that a hurricane was headed our way last week I could have never imagined that it would be like this.Cliff and I  had both lived through Katrina before we ever even knew each other, he in New Orleans and I in Mississippi.  It seemed implausible in my mind that this could be anywhere near that. The two are very different types of storms but I can honestly say after living through them both, this one, amazingly, might prove to be even worse.

We are.. how do I even say it??? Blessed is not the word. Lucky is not right either. The waters came close, scary close to my back window, but then they started to go back down. For so many countless others this did not happen.

Some of the ones I know personally are survivors of Katrina who moved to Houston after they lost everything, only to find themselves losing it all again in Harvey.

Some of them are people I work with at Boys and Girls Country who live off campus and had to be rescued by boat in the middle of the night because their homes took on more than six feet of water.

Some of them are volunteers who work closely with us here at the children's home, giving up so much for us and they now find themselves in need as their homes are gone.

Some of them are church members who just went through this with Ike a few years ago and must now go through it again. The seemingly insurmountable feeling of starting over again.

But nothing in the world, not seeing the devastation on tv, not receiving texts from friends, not even seeing the water rising outside my window prepared me for the helpless feeling of waking to a text at 5 am from my mother telling me that the water was coming into their home.

I had begged them to leave and go stay with my sister earlier in the week but they had stayed despite my best efforts.

It was not stubbornness, not fear, or even the thought that it wouldn't happen to them that kept them there. In fact, they pretty much knew that their new home they have made in a 1940's farm house they bought about a year ago was going to take on water. They stayed knowing so many in their community would need help. And they were right, their home now a mini shelter to their neighbors, their youth minister and his family, who have had three plus feet of water pour into their house from the bayou behind it overnight.

As I sit here typing and the texts and messages are pouring in, I am overcome with emotion again to realize the broad scope of people we have praying for us. Folks from churches across the South where they have served are praying from Little Rock to Jackson, to South Mississippi, and Central Texas. Friends who's connections with our family span decades of ministry. And I am struck by the thought that in each of those places God has worked together for the good of those who have loved Him and served Him despite man's own undoing, despite natural disasters, just as He promised He would. And I know He will continue to do so. 

After Katrina there were those who made cautionary accusations as to why God allowed the storms. Maybe it was the casinos along the coast He did not like. Maybe the debauchery of New Orleans like a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah He was trying to take out. But these claims were ludicrous and unfounded. And whatever doomsday warnings we will undoubtedly hear in the days and weeks to come about Harvey will be, too. 

God does not cause events like this to happen; we live in a fallen world and in it disasters strike. But what He does do is work for the good despite them. 

Today I watched my daddy pray over his community on Facebook standing in his backyard waist deep in water. 

Today God reminded me that home is not in all those boxes that they have lugged around from state to state through the years. Its not the RV that they lived in when they first moved to Orange that was lost today in the flood. Its not even the treasured possessions like family antiques passed down from the previous generations. 

Home is the prayer he prayed. "God, help us to be your people. Help us to lift one another up, to love one another, and to stand with one another. And God I pray that you would just help us to be your hands and your feet." 

Home is the live video I shared today of a dear friend from MS weeping in prayer over us and blessing me so much in the process.

Home is the post I saw from that youth minister's wife pleading for anyone who needed help to reach out to her so that she could serve them, as her own house sits in three feet of water. 

Home is newly rekindled friendships on Facebook with people from my past who are diligently praying for us now. 

After all, I am reminded, this world is not our home, and it is only when we are doing the work of the Kingdom that we are truly at any sort of home here this side of Heaven.

I hope this doesn't sound apathetic or unfeeling. I know that great suffering has taken place in our communities and my heart felt prayers are with those who have lost so much. 

We continue to ask your prayers for Houston, for the Texas Coast, for Southeast Texas and for our dear friends in South LA and MS being pummeled by tornadoes and storms caused by Harvey now. Its not over yet and the rebuilding efforts will be great. 

But I know that our God is greater.