Many old-timers (those who have lived in the Greenville area for 15-20+ years) have declared this storm to be the worst in Greenville history. Waking up on Thursday morning started a rollercoaster of an adventure over the weekend. I could not get out of my street Thursday due to a large fallen tree (that's right - tree and not merely a branch) lying across the road. Although I have a chainsaw and would have hacked the tree away, I refrained due to the powerline(s) that were down too.

As I woke up Thursday I decided to go outside and see what "damage" had been done, and this I did before our power went out @ 830a. As I stepped out of the house, I felt like I was standing in the middle of a warzone. I saw branches of trees, which were 8-10+ inches thick falling making sounds that usually a gun makes when fired. This did not happen once or twice but multiple times simultaneously. There were also whole trees that cracked in half and even whole trees that were fallen with the roots pulled out of the ground as they fell. Not only did the trees create such a display of sound but as did the transformers in our area. There's nothing quite listening to a transformer "blow" creating a gunshot type noise with the sound of electricity exploding from its encasing.

The rest of Thursday, we discussed and talked and discussed some more, "should we find a place to stay or stick it out tonight?" We decided to stick it out Thursday night. We decided early Friday morning we were not doing that again. As Thursday progressed, our warm house degraded to a warm icebox, or so to speak. Since we use Vonage for our phone service (and love it! - apart from power outages), we neither had any communication to the outside world. It was not until Friday that we ventured outside to visit our neighbors from across the street. They were very generous in allowing us to come in and get warm and to use their phone to call people. Most people we called did not have power (at that time). One of the families in our church was so gracious to allow us to stay at their place but since I am directionally challenged, especially at night when I've never been to the place at all beforehand, we could not find their house. Fortunately, earlier in the day, we were able to contact one of our good friends who then called other good friends on our behalf to see if we could stay with them. Allen then came by to let us know we could stay at John & Ginger's while we wait for power to come on at our house (at the time of this post, we still do not have power). But at the time that Allen came by, we were planning to stay with the Koch's. And after not finding the Koch's house, we showed up at John & Ginger's unannounced. God is good to give us such great friends. It's been a neat time to catch-up with John & Ginger because we have not seen them in what seems to be a very long time. (I don't know if that paragraph actually made sense, but there ya have it... :))

We've been staying with John & Ginger ever since. It is amazing how prideful we are, and it takes a "catastrophe" of losing something simple, like power, to show us that sin. It took us only one night to realize we MUST solicit help for a place to stay - not for us, per se, but for Owen. The paradigm of how we think has totally transformed (and is still being transformed). But we have seen God's goodness on display throughout this whole ordeal and it is a NEAT thing to behold. God has kept us safe. We have not been without food. And His goodness is overabundant!

So what happens when power in the whole city goes out and you are left to keep warm on your own? What happens when the majority of your food in the freezer and fridge goes bad? What happens when your warm water turns cold and the baby-wipe warmer is not working because it requires electricity to do its job? What happens when you wonder, as a husband and a new father, "how am I going to meet the needs of my family in a situation I've never encountered before?" Would you go to work and be warm while your wife and child are home, freezing, and fending for themselves?

The Gospel answers these questions. Romans 8:31-39:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Even though Paul's scope is much greater than our mere physical needs, his scope includes these things. But our spiritual need is far greater than our physical need. Sometimes our perception of what is important is skewed and our pride does not let us see the forest before the trees. And sometimes God takes away what we deem as important (physical warmth and "security") to demonstrate what we thought as important is nothing of the sort and our greater need must be recognized and dealt with otherwise our physical death is only the beginning of our problems.

So, why is Paul confident that, " neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God..." ? He bases his confidence on His earlier statement, "He (That is God) who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" We can be confident that God will supply all of our needs, in His order and in His timing. He demonstrates to us that we are nothing and He is everything. He wants to show us how sinful we truly are that we may see how great a Savior our Jesus is. Sometimes He withholds the perfect gifts He gives to us, like warmth and "security", to show us our warmth and security has taken His place in our lives. They have become idols. We are not to worship the created things but use the created things to worship Him. And what better way to worship our Christ than by recognizing that He is all we need? After all, everything points back to Him.