Moving Forward

It's really hard to "move on" from everything that has happened here in the past week. Everywhere you go there are curbs full of flood victims' cherished possessions, the fire halls are still opened distributing bottled water and meals, we are all still having to boil water before using it and our county is still in a state of emergency. It's still a little tricky getting through some of the towns around here, as everyone is working so hard to get things up and running and the roads get shut down to allow for that. Closest to home for us, perhaps, is that Brooke's school has been closed all week and it won't open until Tuesday. See what I mean? So much reminds us that things aren't "normal" around here.

We have "adopted" a family in the next town over and John and his family have been going down helping them gut their house and clean up the destruction. I have the girls (and bad asthma) so it's hard for me to serve in that way but I've been working at the church most days helping the Red Cross distribute meals to the community. There is so much we want to do but with John working so much and having three small children, it's hard to be helpful as we could be otherwise.

I guess I just don't understand. If you go a mile in any direction from our house you will find complete devastation. Even houses down the road from us got hit pretty bad. Some of our neighbors were helping us pump out our basement and we were told that our basement looked the best out of everyone in town. Most people lost everything in their basements and somehow, our hot water heater survived and the water line stopped about an inch underneath the motor of our furnace. Amazing. We haven't tried turning it on yet (because it's supposed to dry out as much as possible) but we're pretty sure it's fine. I feel so blessed that we have endured so little but I don't get why. It's definitely because of God's goodness and mercy but if things had fared differently for us, He's still just as good and merciful. See where I get caught up?

Tomorrow I'm bringing a hot meal down to our family and I'm so eager to feel like I'm contributing. It's not about ME but it's so hard to feel incapable of making even a small dent in such a massive cleanup. I hope more opportunities to help out come my way! My heart breaks for so many around me.