Sometimes God Whispers, Sometimes He Yells

"He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses." Psalm 135:7

Last night, around 9:45 PM, our electricity (along with that of about 10,000 of our closest friends) went off. Not a big deal. I had filled the bathtub with water in case we would need to flush the toilets (if you don't have a well, that doesn't make any sense so ask a friend who has a well). I had even managed to squeeze out a few "important" emails and shut down the computer. I did forget to wash my face and brush my teeth which is also more difficult without running water but not a huge deal (can be accomplished with a water bottle).

Things got a little more difficult as I tried to settle in to bed in the deafening silence of a home that is un-electrified (Merriam Webster take note-I made up that word!). Mator is used to a fan in her room and woke immediately after the power shut off. She went back to sleep remarkably easy. I however, at 35 years old now, have more years of habit behind me. It is VERY hard for me to sleep without my white noise machine (note to self-buy a battery operated backup-duh). Plus, there is the "back of your mind" question- are these 60 MPH gusts going to rip the shingles off my house or the whole roof? And if the whole roof goes, will my children be sucked out of their beds? What about all the pictures I've been meaning to scrapbook that are sitting on the counter in the other room? Do I have digital backups in case those are sucked into the vortex? Oh, and should we be down in the basement? This is what kept me up until after midnight. Then, Doodle woke up and let out an ear piercing scream so I "gently" carried her to our room to sleep off the terrifying dream she must have had. At 5:30 I started waking every 30 minutes: Andy's alarm, Muffin's terrified cry, Andy calling to let me know he was on a 2 hour delay, my alarm, etc. So when I finally got up, still no electricity, I thought, "How is God going to use me getting maybe 4 hours of sleep to glorify Him-this ought to be good." In other words, what was the point of this major wind storm anyway?? Want to know?

Well, I got Muffin ready for school, packed up my toiletries and after dropping her off an hour late, I went of to my in-laws to take a shower. When I arrived I found that their good friend Mary had also sought refuge at their "electrified" house. I was talking to Mary when suddenly my mother in law called for help from the next room. She was in a desperate situation and the truth is, if we had not been there, she could have been in an even worse situation quickly. We were trying to help when the phone rang. Normally, I wouldn't answer their phone but I saw that it was my father in law. See, he was supposed to be 1 1/2 hours into a trip to Michigan but his boss was late to arrive at work and so he was still in town. Guess why his boss was late? And do you know why my father in law was calling? Just to check in with his wife. Wow. God is so good! He was at the house in five minutes and resolved the situation. If not for that windstorm knocking out our power, my mother in law would have been all alone in a time of need. Isn't God so grand?

So, sometimes God whispers and we are left to wonder what was His will in a situation? There are certainly times when we will have to be satisfied to wait until our glorious meeting in heaven to say, "Hey, by the way, what was THAT all about?" Then there are times when God is a roaring windstorm who practically shouts, "I am in this. I created this, and I created you. And sister, you need to sit back and relax and remember who is in charge!"

By the way, our power came back on about 15 minutes after I got back home today. Thank you Lord!

We're Gonna Rock Down to Electric Avenue

Having just come off a 50 hour electricity fast (this was not voluntary), I have few thoughts. When the electricity went off Sunday around 5:00 due to the remnants of hurricane Ike, I really had no idea the extent of the destruction. And other than fretting about a possible loss of about $400 worth of food in my fridge and two freezers-I was OK with the whole thing. In the end, thanks to ice and then my dad's generator connected to a freezer, we only lost about $40 worth of stuff and about half of that was that stuff that should have been thrown out anyway-we were never going to eat it! Praise God! And those of you with wells and septic systems know that there is no flushing or washing since there is no well pump so that got a little gross but nothing we couldn't handle. So here are the really cool things that happened thanks to our electric being out.
1. Multiple opportunities to help family and strangers clean up debris in their yards. Since we only have tiny trees in our big yard we had no stuff to clean up. We met our widowed neighbor down the street and got to help her with sticks and limbs. The kids were great helpers too.
2. Andy has had 3 days off of school (so far, possibly more) and Muffin had 1.
3. We spent the night at Jim & Sue's one night-we never get the chance to do that so it was like a big sleepover!
4. Friends and family helping out. My friend Carolyn offered her camper for us to use and even came over one dark night to help me move food from my fridge to my deep freeze and stock it with ice.
5. Having dinner at Johnny and Carey's house (see pictures above). These are friends we've known for years but have never been to each other's house. They had power and invited anyone who didn't to have dinner at their house. Is that showing the love of Christ or what? And I've heard more of these stories from other people too-doing laundry at a friend's house, sleeping over, sharing a freezer-whatever is needed. It is such an encouragement to hear so much good around us.
6. The quiet and stillness of a non-electric house. I couldn't vacuum or mop if I wanted to so everything just seemed to slow down. The distant hum of all our neighbors' generators at night was somehow comforting to me!
So, we're back online and slowly getting back to the pace of everyday life. There are still others in our area without power though-maybe I'll go hang out at their house instead of vacuuming!