A Personal Look at Hurricane Katrina

Seven years ago this week, many of us sat in our living rooms in stunned silence as images of destruction flowed across our screens. In the following days, the situation deteriorated beyond anyone's wildest imagination. The combination of nature and human error tore in as hopelessness weighed on all of us.

I wasn't in my living room. I was almost four hours away from home in a children's hospital with my youngest child. After a failed heart catheter procedure, they opened up my tiny little girl to repair one of the few things on her body that was considered "fixable". 

We sat for several days in a surreal fog with stories of disaster mixed with unbelievable stories of heroism. We were a captive audience in that tiny hospital room. Switching between dvds and news stations, we tried to preserve our sanity.

While watching our daughter closely, we were doing everything we could to help her pull through. She has a complicated anatomy and when it comes time for surgery, we always hold our breath. The world focused on the French Quarter and we focused on the beeping monitors, draining tubes and vital signs of our precious girl.

Today, as the Gulf Coast faces another storm, (Hurricane Isaac) we made our way to Portland again. This time for an annual checkup but I must admit, it was a strange feeling. We didn't expect anything big with our visit but you never know. The forecasters are predicting a milder storm but they don't always know either, do they? As it turns out, all is stable and we will return next year at the same time.

Sometimes I mark major world events with whatever is going on in our lives at the same time. Honestly, I'm sure that we aren't the only ones who mark these times with something personal. We often forget that even when the world is focused on major disaster, there is still someone, somewhere, walking a rocky path in their life. The difference is, they are doing it alone without the spotlight of tv cameras and news crews at every corner.

My Creator knows all of these things. He knows what will happen next, how we will react and what we need to thrive. He holds us through every storm if we let Him. He even knows the storms we face when life goes on around us. His focus is on us, on me, on you dear one.

Psalm 31:24 "Be of good courage,

And He shall strengthen your heart,

All you who hope in the Lord."

Today and throughout the week, we will continue to pray for the safety of those in the path of the storm. We hope the lessons learned from the past will help to keep the damage to a minimum. My prayer is that as the waters recede and the winds die down, we will be reminded that we all need each other.

Always,

Hope