|
Rebuild with prayer in the aftermath of a hurricane
- Sarah Hyatt
Hurricane Charley was moving on an unpredictable path. High winds whistled outside my home on the South Carolina coast. Hearing the wind took me back to September 1989, and the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo here in Charleston.
I remember feeling fearful, frustrated, inconvenienced, victimized and just plain tired. Our house had survived, but many friends and neighbors faced substantial damage to their property. Stores were closed; the entire electricity grid was destroyed; stoplights were not only not working—they weren't there. It was easy to wonder, "Where is God in all this?"
I'm used to looking at things through a lens of expecting good, but that wasn’t much help with feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tasks at hand and the lack of basic necessities. I normally used the time after dark, when my children were in bed, for spiritual study, which I found refreshing and uplifting. But now, when the sun went down, we went right to bed—tired, dirty and without light to read by anyway.
In the quiet of the night, I began to pray. I’d been so focused on what we were lacking I hadn’t had time to consider all the good we really had. And for me, prayer begins with acknowledging God’s love and His goodness. This goodness is universal and ever-present, no matter what the circumstances appear to be. I tried to see that goodness with my prayers. I thought about all that we did have—enough food for now, our house basically undamaged, good neighbors, and health. Then, as I prayerfully asked what to do, the divine message came to change my focus from what we lacked to how I could help others.
At first, I rebelled against that idea. I just wanted to wait for someone to come and help me! But I decided to volunteer my family’s time to help anyone who needed assistance with the clean up. We found lots of takers. And in the intervening days we pulled out soggy carpet, dragged broken tree limbs and helped distribute food supplies with a local charity.
After a couple of days of this my neighbor asked if I could keep her two sons since she needed to get back to work as a medical lab technician. I quickly agreed, not thinking about how I would feed them. Not only were we low on food, the grocery stores were either still closed or not yet restocked. Time for more prayer.
It didn't seem reasonable that a loving God would ask me to help my neighbor and then punish my family for it. I needed to feel I could use the food I had on hand without feeling like my own children would suffer later. I prayed with a Bible verse that had helped me in a tight financial situation before: "For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality.” For me, I saw this as a spiritual law of good—which would never take from one and give to another, but which blesses everyone equally and sufficiently.
I didn’t think I had an abundance of anything, but I realized that at least I did have all I needed right at that moment. I felt a real sense of gratitude to God that I had enough to give everyone lunch. I felt sure if I followed my heart and shared what we had, my family and those we helped could only experience blessing. So we fixed a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wound up with just a few left over.
A couple of hours later, two Red Cross workers came by to do a damage survey. They looked so worn out that I asked them how long it had been since they'd eaten. It had been over 24 hours! I offered the last of my sandwiches and some soda. You'd have thought I'd given them a steak dinner from the looks on their faces. But now I really had nothing left for my family's dinner. It wasn’t easy not to worry.
But each time I started to think about preparing dinner, I remembered my earlier prayer and felt calm about my decision to give. A line I’d studied in Science and Health also offered great reassurance: "Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us." I gained conviction that I could trust God’s infinite goodness to provide whatever we needed even though I didn't have a clue how it could possibly come about.
At 5pm, my neighbor returned from work to pick up her sons. She pointed to a man entering behind her and said, "I want you meet my brother." He was carrying an armload of groceries after driving in from Pennsylvania. He brought in enough for us to get by several more days. We even had cookies!
Funny how one answered prayer encourages us to keep praying. And that's what happened here. My sense of trust in divine Wisdom's ability to provide solutions where I couldn't even see possibilities was growing.
As the days without electricity wore on, and the hard labor continued, we found ourselves in desperate need of clean laundry. I remember sitting in a chair one afternoon, absolutely exhausted from helping friends, and asking God what I was supposed to do about the laundry. The thought came very quickly to call my friend Ann and see if she needed any help cleaning up her yard or home. Boy did I rebel. "You've got to be kidding! I just need to get the laundry done. Don't ask me to help someone else! Haven't I done enough?"
I kept getting the same urgent feeling to call my friend, and see if she needed any help. Finally, I gave up in exasperation and called her. Ann had just returned home and welcomed the help. So I gathered up my sons and off we went. As we were pulling limbs in the front yard, one of Ann's friends stopped by. She owned a local motel where electricity had just been restored after eight days. She invited Ann to a laundry party at the motel, and she graciously included me in the invitation.
The humility welled up in me as I thought about God's loving care for all Her children. I actually cried. That simple act of following through on the answer to my prayer, not only put me in a situation that I could get the laundry done, but it turned out Ann had a gas hot water heater. She even offered us hot showers—the first ones in over a week.
When devastation and destruction weaken my faith in good, it helps me to remember that good can and does triumph over evil. Now, fifteen years after this event, what I remember most about that time is the neighborliness, the unselfish sharing, the increased sense of family and community, the outpouring of care and the prayers of people the world over.
Reprint permission from http://www.spirituality.com
October,
2005
Respond
to this Article/Story or leave comment
***************************************************
ABOUT THE AUTHORs: Sarah is
a spiritual healer and speaker. She speaks at venues all across the United
States and Canada sharing the spiritual inspiration found in the book Science
and Health.
|
|
.
