Thank God For Protection
I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation. -- Psalm 118:21
What was important to you yesterday morning? What was the focus of your life? Were you busy getting the kids to school and yourself to work? Were you stressed about a job situation or worried about money? Or maybe you just felt overwhelmed by the demands of a life on the go?
It’s amazing how quickly everything can change. When the sirens sounded and another storm approached, most people thought it would be just another small event. Oh, there might be some destruction. A few people might even lose their homes. But nothing major. Nothing widespread. Nothing that would impact on anyone you might know.
The storms killed close to 200 people in Alabama alone. That number may go up. Tuscaloosa looks like a war zone. Neighborhoods in Birmingham are gone. Rubble and chaos reign throughout so much of the northern part of the state. Citizens are too busy trying to find people who are missing to even consider the enormity of rebuilding shattered lives.
The tears flowed from the survivors. Of course they did. But there was an overwhelming sense of thanks. One man stood in front of what had been his home. Splintered wood and shattered glass mingled with remnants of a life. He pointed to a bathtub. He’d rode out the storm inside it, hanging on as it swirled and moved in the wind. He’s alive and grateful for that.
A young mother and her two young children hid in a Birmingham-area basement with relatives who lived nearby. Their house is gone. Of all the relatives in the area, only one house remains. They gathered there in the darkness to await a shattered dawn. Yet, there was reason to smile. They were alive and healthy. And the children’s dog, feared lost in the storm, was found alive and unharmed. Joy amid the dark devastation.
Life has forever changed by those impacted by the storms. Even those who had only minor damage will understand what could have happened. How fragile life is. How quickly all those things we value can be destroyed.
One man asked today why it takes something so devastating to make us treat each other with kindness and compassion. I don’t know. Maybe it takes something awful to make us look up from our self-filled world and see the people around us for the valuable, priceless creations that
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