I'll take a pair of ruby slippers please!

At present, life is a whirlwind, literally.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast is on a tornado warning. And no one had to tell me twice that perhaps today I should stay inside. I woke up around four this morning because the rain and wind were coming down so hard that it sounded as if they were trying to break down the walls of this church. If not for the constant lightning, I could not have got more than a foot of visibility …to be able to see the water rising all around, and a few trees nearly laying on the ground from the force of the wind. (Mom, I’m still okay!)

We had to rush to get all the volunteers inside the sanctuary so they (and there homes for the week) wouldn’t end up in OZ! I was grabbing extra towels and blankets and pillows to make them comfortable so they could get in a few more precious hours of sleep. This whole experience is not what they expected.

To be completely honest, I’m living with some things that I did not expect either. Things like tornado warnings and the fact that sometimes, when we serve others, we can get met with a lot of opposition. I’d like to think this was unique to my situation. But I see it happening to my roommates and to all different kinds of people who are giving part of their lives away to serve the people on the coast.

Oh. I am reminded that this happened to the Israelites who tried to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem with Ezra and Nehemiah. I think there were definitely times when they feared for their lives. There were times when giving up seemed like a more rational choice than being faithful. At one point while Ezra is talking to his people about what they should do next, he says that what their enemies had intended as a curse, God used as a blessing.

I guess that somehow tornados warnings and the biggest hurricane in our countries history and misled expectations of what ministry should be could all seem to be curses. They feel like curses. I would like to be the girl who says that really, they are blessings. I think I need, for my own sanity, to be the girl who believes that they will become a blessing.

And that the process of struggle and mourning are part of the curse becoming a blessing.

And that God is still present with us as we endure the process.

The process has me exhausted. I am hanging onto hope by a thread. Hope in a God that loves me and has a plan for me in both blessing and curses is my pair of ruby slippers.