Mom Seriously

Hey Everybody!

I hope you had a great Mother's Day! My husband reminded me that it was my 19th! Wow! That is so hard to believe. I'm so thankful that I got to spend the day with my family. I hope you did too!

We continue to receive calls from friends who have just now heard about the Nashville Flood and are checking in on us! (Guess they don't read my blog! LOL) I have another link to direct you to, this one from Baptist Press. Check it out by clicking here.

My family was busy this weekend helping out in the community around our church. Just a couple of blocks from our building there is desperate need. My husband and boys were helping people move out of their soggy homes and ripping out already-rotting drywall and insulation. There is nothing like a flood--I am quickly learning. Another thing I have realized is that we have so sanitized THE Flood, Noah's Flood, that we don't pause to think of the utter devastation and loss--of everything. I personally will never hear rain in the same way, because there is a sound byte in my memory of the pelting rain I heard when I got up last Saturday morning. I have always thought of rain as comforting, but this was not that kind. It was steady and raging, like a horse's hoofbeats charging along on a tightly packed trail.

There is no other conversation in Nashville but the flood. I was chatting with the woman in front of me at Wal-Mart the other day, and she was telling me her flood story. She and her family lived in a trailer park that was completely washed out. Now they're living in a tent across the street from the trailer park. As I listened to her share her great loss, I was astounded to hear her conclude with, "But we're okay. There's a lot of people worse off than we are."

The truth is, she's right. There are people without even a tent. And there are people with family members dead or still missing.

My pastor's Mother's Day sermon was certainly not typical this year. But it was profoundly appropriate. The title: "God Why?" A lot of people are asking that. And there are no easy answers, if any answers at all. But he pointed us to the story of Joseph in the Old Testament book of Genesis, specifically to chapter 50: 19-20.

But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

We don't know what is happening in this city that we love or in the community that we specifically serve, but the Lord does. And if this flood gives us the chance to show people who Jesus is, then we will truly be a part of the greatest search and rescue mission ever: to seek and save the Lost--the saving of many lives.

Please pray for Nashville.