Hitting Landfall.

Dear Gustav,

I am in Texas. Did you know this?

Is this why you are here?

Because I hear that things like Katrina are a once-in-a-lifetime event, so I am thinking that you heard I was in town, just had my hair "did" and decided to rain on my parade. Is that it?

Oh, you are a nasty one, Gustav.

And what kind of name is that, anyway? Gustav? Seriously, if you were all that nasty they would have named you Chucky, Freddie, Jason or Cujo.

Gustav makes you sound like you are going to hit landfall, break into a rousing rendition of a Walt Disney theme park number and have your shirt unbuttoned down to your navel.

Sorry Gustave, been there. Seen that.

But in all seriousness, do you know what kind of havoc you are wreaking?

Imagine being 90. And alone. And the only people that care for you work in the nursing home where you now reside. So you are their problem. And you hate being anyone's problem. Now imagine that they pack your things, but not all your things, just the few things they can grab quickly. So they leave behind the pictures of you and your husband on your wedding day. Or the dog tags your son wore. Or the bracelet your baby girl wore home from the hospital. Sure they take a nightgown or two, a pair of house shoes and a toothbrush. But those things can be replaced. Your heart cannot.

Or imagine being a mother. A single mom, at that. And it's all up to you, mama. Those big eyes are looking at you as you drive eekingly slow down a jam-packed highway - praying to God your car doesn't overheat. Or run out of gas. And hoping beyond hope that where they put you can accommodate all four of you. Because you're a team, you and your babies.

And let's not talk about someones puppy or kitty. And how they are dropping them off by the carloads down at the Lufkin Expo center, where they are checked in, put in a crate and added to the pile.

Or how another busload of people - families, children, moms and dads, someones granny and some one's pawpaw - pulled into the church parking lot today. As our volunteers prayed the beds would hold out, the food wouldn't run out, and there would be enough arms to reach out.

Gustav you really are something.
Coming into our towns and our homes.
Filling up our thoughts.
Awaking our fears.
Making us re-live old memories.
Making us remember those we lost.

Certainly, Gustav, you are more than a song and dance. More than an animated figure with a toothy grin and booming baritone voice. You are the fear that once again people will lose their friends, and their pictures, their homes and their jobs. And that we will have to watch as babies cry and go hungry. And momma's beg for some bread.

But oh, there is one bigger than you, Gustav.

Job 38:1, Then the Lord answered Job OUT OF THE STORM...

4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone- 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 8 "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'?...16 "Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?...24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, 26 to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, 27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? 28 Does the rain have a father?

Chances are if you are on a cot tonight, or in a hotel room in a foreign town, you are not reading this blog. But for those of you who are reading...say a prayer. Say a prayer to the One whose "way is in the whirlwind and the storm." (Nahum 1:3)

Amen.