Floody, Muddy, the Return

If you have a 500 year flood it stands to reason that things should now stay dry for a good, long while. Not so. Only four years later there was a 100 year flood! Now this did seem to be a major scheduling error. Yet again the muddy waters of the Pearl River came lapping at our door. We were all just getting over the first one, and had been reassured by "the authorities" that nothing like that could happen again. It did. These were not flash floods; they came up very slowly, and since our homes were built on a small rise, 4 feet above street level, we hoped it would crest and start to recede before hitting the foundations. It was a gamble, trying to guess if it would still rise 4 more feet once the street was under, because trucks could not get in to evacuate furnishings once that happened. Again the land went under, and so did the house. There were only about 10 inches of water in our home this second time, but in some ways it was more devastating than the first. If it could happen twice, might there be even more? The first had been some giant fluke, now it was beginning to look like a trend! At least this time we didn't try to live in the house, while it was rebuilt around us!

Having "gone west," we no longer live there, but those flood years were a real stretch for all of us, a time of learning who you can count on in adversity. People were great, but most importantly, we learned "yet again" that no matter what your troubles are, or how often you are besieged, God will never desert you.

Ezekiel 7.26 - Calamity upon calamity will befall you; woe upon woe; disaster upon disaster.

Jeremiah 4.20 - Disaster follows hard on disaster, suddenly my tents are destroyed. In one moment all that sheltered me is gone.

Zephaniah 1.15 - It is a day of terrible distress and anguish, a day of ruin and desolation, of darkness, gloom, clouds, blackness.

Jeremiah 9.19 - Hear Jerusalem weeping in despair. We are ruined! Disaster has befallen us! We must leave our land and homes!

Job 8.14-15 - A man without God is trusting in a spider's web. Everything he counts on will collapse. If he counts on his home for security, it won't last.

Job 30.24 - Does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?

Nahum 1.7 - The Lord is good. When trouble comes he is the place to go.

Psalm 27.13 - I am expecting the Lord to rescue me again, so that once again I will see his goodness to me.

2 Corinthians 4.8-9 - We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed or broken. We are perplexed because we do not understand why things happen as they do, but we don't give up and quit. God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going.

Psalm 17.7 - Wondrously show thy steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversities at thy right hand.

Zephaniah 3.20 - I will gather you together and bring you home again.

Psalm 29.10 - The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; The Lord sits enthroned as king forever.