Comfort and Convenience

What a week! or weeks! I hardly know if I'm coming or going. We still have no DSL line at the house so we are isolated from internet and email. We are able to be back at church today, but had to cancel classes, due to painting our youth room floor which wasn't completed on time due to hurricanes. So the morning is full of chaos. We sent a team of 15 to a church in Cocoa Beach yesterday who lost their roof. They stripped up soggy carpet for 8 hours.

Our home was without power only 15 hours. If we had only gone thru Frances, we would have thought it was a terrible storm. But because we had been through Charley, it just seemed to extend Charley. I am drained emotionally and physically. It's so hard to still see piles and piles of dead branches and broken and twisted signs. Everywhere I go, I'm reminded that our environment is out of control. Our women's retreat of this weekend had to be cancelled because so many of our congregation were out of power and reeling from both hurricanes...and now all the work of trying to reschedule it.

Our family sat on the patio thru the worst of the storm. The winds came from the front of the house, so we were in a more protected area. One of the more amazing sights was watching the ground under the tree beside our pool. As the winds ripped at the tree, the ground would roll up and down in ripples as the roots struggled to hold the tree in place. Also through the night and early morning as the storm raged, over and over again the black night would suddenly light up all across the sky like sheet lightning, only with the most beautiful emerald or teal glow as a transformer blew.

We are thankful even as we wonder if life will ever be normal again, and we pray for God's hand of protection on us and millions of people affected as Ivan and all the other "letters of the alphabet" approach.