The recent flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey hit very close to home.
Seriously, the picture at the top is my car, parked in my front yard, as close as my dad dared to get it to the house.
If you look past my car, you can see my neighbors' homes all have water in them.
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But even though we were surrounded by water flowing swifty enough to snap wooden bridges in half, and rising swiftly enough to get two feet high in my neighbors' homes, we didn't get anything in our house.
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The water stopped right at the bottom edge of this photo, which I took from our front door.
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It even came right up to the garage door, but all of the water remained out of our dwelling.
I have neighbors that have filled their four car driveway with water-damaged, soggy chunks of their homes and possesions.
I have coworkers who had water six foot high in their homes. People in my church lost everything they had.
In the middle of all the flooding, I felt like I was drowning in despair. That we would be next. Our house was gonna have water in it; we would be wading out on foot with whatever we could carry in hand, and hope the rest would be salvageable.
In the midst of all that turmoil & stress, this song started running through my mind.
It helped to to remember that I need the comfort of Holy Spirit, not the TV weather man. I needed the strength of Father God, because I was on the verge of breaking down. I desperately needed the salvation of my Jesus, because I didn't see any way out of this disaster.
Thank God, He did part the waters for my family. My house was one of three on the entire street to have no water in the home. There were maybe fifty homes in our neighborhood that could claim the same.
As the waters started to recede, we did what our family always does in a crisis: get to church and start helping.
Our church became the hub of donations, & housed over 100 rescue workers from all over the USA. The parking lot looked more like a marina for boats than a lot for cars, donations came by the truckload (& I mean 18-wheeler trucks, not pickup trucks), & the local community came out in droves, not only to be helped, but to help others as well.
