Testimonies

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The sheer size of her was eerie. I kept looking at the radar thinking "This cannot be!" She easily tripled the size of the area she was approaching. Looked to me like she was taking up the whole damned Gulf! Cat 5! Everything for 150 miles in any direction was full to capacity. There was nowhere to go! I grabbed a beer and a cigarette just as day was breaking. Then, in a little town called Walker, all by myself, I ventured outside beneath my carport and I watched as all hell broke loose! There are storms. Then there are hurricanes. And then there are judgments.

Judgments brought about by God BECAUSE of man's sin. Like it or not, believe it or not, it is what it is. You can dance around it, pick over it, chew on it and spit it out til the cows come home. When you are done accepting it for what it really is, then, and only then, can you answer God's call to action. It was indeed a judgment on a city and a coastal region so full of sin, it was ripe for the picking. Unfortunately, as far as judgments go, it is never the people who bring about the sin who die, but the innocent. For it is the innocent loss of life that brings about the necessary change to begin with.

Suffice it to say no one ever clearly sees unless they look deeply just what the judgment means. Sometimes, as is the case here, we don't see the fruit until years later. When you understand that it is all about God and not mortal man ~ When you know that He is going about the business of cleaning up such a sinful mess ~ When you comprehend that we are stinking up His turf, then you get a feel for why He gets fed up! Voodoo, witchcraft, political corruption, Mardi Gras, crime, murder, rape, casinos, strip joints, and oh I could go on and on. Understood!

The lingering importance lies not in the details of the actual storm or the resulting destruction but in the aftermath. This is where the call to duty really lies. This is what separates the whiners from the winners. This is where the goodness of people's hearts trump rape. Strangers rebuilding a city they don't even call home trumps corruption. People selling their homes, in other states, to gather money to come to New Orleans and help! Huh?

Let's tire, and do it quickly, of depending on our govt to crush sin. Just like you would kill a poisonous snake in your own back yard. It's not about waiting around for others to do what God calls us to do. It's about ONE person crushing one sin.

It's about TWO or more people coming together in prayer.

It's about THREE children telling a fourth that Katrina was a bad storm but good people have come to make it better.
FOUR women driving nails into what will become someone else's kitchen.

FIVE men watching over their children while the wives take refreshments to relieve workers.

SIX preachers holding a meeting to discuss opening the doors of their churches to the shelterless.

SEVEN people cooking up a big batch of jambalaya to raise money for hurricane victims.

EIGHT friends taking out their own boats to collect the have-nots left behind on porches and rooftops by the haves.

NINE teenagers taking to the streets and making music with makeshift instruments to break the monotony.

It is most certainly about TEN govt officials getting off their dead asses and standing up for a people so worthy that not even a great wall of water could stop them from singing God's praises!

So it is from the murky depths of hell, miracles. Miracles in the form of people. People from every walk of life and literally from every nation. Coming to a place they've never even been before, to help build a house for someone they will never know. To become a part of something so much greater than they. To breathe new life into a city that everyone said shouldn't be rebuilt.

On a hot August morning in 2005, whoever would've dreamed...

Things are different now, and that is as it should be. When I venture into my backyard these days I no longer sport a beer or a cigarette. When I do look back on THAT day, all I remember is death, pain, raw fear, loss. I remember the sounds of people screaming for help. I remember the 'toxic soup'. The dead animals and human bodies floating. The boats of normal everyday people gliding past home after home, breaking into attics, pulling people out. The looting, the shooting, the fires. Fires... in all that water! The heat. God it was so hot! You cannot know what a miracle looks like unless you have experienced the judgment. Then I ask myself. What is love? LOVE? Love is the sound of a nail hitting wood! It was true on a particular day over 2000 years ago. It is true now!

Revelation 19:2..."for His judgments are just and true."

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