No Power

Last month we had one of the worst storms in St. Louis history insofar as it made the most people lose power of any storm ever. Wednesday night we were fixing supper and getting ready for church when it started blowing in. James called the kids outside to pick up the toys when the wind began to blow. They had no sooner gotten all the toys picked up than it began to rain and continued blowing. Minutes later the power went out. It didn’t come on for 5 days! We didn’t end up getting to church that night. We suspected a tornado warning, even though we heard no sirens and couldn’t listen to the radio to find out so we went downstairs and waited. The boys were very concerned about the tree we have in our backyard. The wind was blowing so hard (60 mph with 90 mph gusts!) that it looked like it was going to blow over! They prayed for the tree and God protected it! We spent the night at home that night with all the windows open.

Thursday it got very hot – up to 100 degrees! So we spent most of the day and then the night at the church since the church had air conditioning and it would be safer for the kids. We cleaned up the church yard, visited with other folks who were there because they had no power either, and just had fun. Then we went swimming at Mom and Dad’s.

Friday another storm came through. It wasn’t as bad as the other but it knocked out the power again for many of the people who’d gotten it back on the day before. More trees blew over. This storm cooled things off. Since the church lost power with this second storm, and things had cooled off so much we went home. It was beautiful! It got so cool that we needed blankets that night! God was good to us! We didn’t lose very much food. What needed to be used we were able to share with others who also had no power. For instance, we had some ground beef that needed to be used. Mom had some sausage. We put together some chili and had it for dinner one of the nights. Another night we used up some chicken one family had and some spaghetti and cheese another family had in chicken spaghetti. It was so much fun to be that creative! It was definitely GMT – Good Missionary Training. It certainly was nice when the power came back on. An electric pole a couple houses down from us had a tree fall on it and it broke the wires. Monday night they put a new pole in and then rigged up a temporary “fix” so that we could have electricity. A couple days later they came in and made it more permanent.

As a Christian I’m never without power. Thankfully, God’s grace is always there and it is always sufficient. I do, however, have to choose to tap into it. Will I respond to problems or react to them? It’s like turning on a lightswitch and the light coming on when the power is there. When I receive God’s grace I turn on that switch and it flows through me and gives me the power to do and be what He wants me to be.