We have had a lot of going’s on here, and I have a lot of things to write about, but the big news this week is the weather. My heart goes out to those in harm’s way just a little to our northwest in Portage. A large tornado came through on Monday night, followed by another large thunderstorm and caused a lot of damage due to wind and hail.
The famous Air Zoo in Kalamazoo sustained water damage when the roof leaked. Many hundreds of thousands of historical documents, photos and artifacts are stored there on the top floor, and some of them were soaked during the storm, according to the president Troy Thrash, via Fox Weather. Thousands of the items are in the process of being dried out using dry ice and “gamma ray technology” (if I heard correctly–that was a new one for me, if so!), and the president was hopeful that the precious photos and uniforms, etc. will be preserved for future generations. These items are all irreplaceable.
The amazing thing is that only “a couple of football fields away,” a huge FedEx warehouse was destroyed. Many other areas were harmed during this pair of storms, including a trailer park and a mall, but so far I haven’t heard any deaths reported. (Praise the Lord!)
Our little area made it through the latest round of storms all right, but we got a lot of water in a short time. After the first storm went through, things had calmed down quite a bit. The sun came out, and I emerged from a basement elsewhere down the block just in time to see my son, Beau, standing in the center of the road taking pictures of the storm. Everything was very quiet. It was a little surreal. We met in the center of the road to compare notes.
As the second storm approached, the sound of roaring was in the air. I wondered if it was distant thunder, but we only saw one bolt of lightning. Later, we heard that large hail fell just southwest of us, and that may have been the sustained low roar we heard. The sky was really wild, with part blue sky, part white, fluffy clouds, and other parts dark, with weird yellowish clouds mingling into the mix.
Beau captured some interesting photos:
In between the storms, Beau got this picture that to me represents trust and contentment. A red squirrel climbed out onto the branch of the Catawba tree, and warmed himself. He wasn’t concerned at all about the approaching storm or the torrent that he had just been through. If he wasn’t worried up there in the tree, then why would I be?
I went back over many of the promises the Lord has made to us in His word. He often tells us not to fear (over 300 times!), but I was thinking of the promise He made to Noah in Genesis 9: 8 – 16, that He would never again destroy the earth with a worldwide flood. And His token of that is, of course, the beautiful rainbow that often appears after a storm.
That one is easy to remember, but there are so many others that will bring comfort if I will only think of them. So today I created a “cheat sheet” of Precious Promises to remind myself of just a few of the blessings that can be ours if we follow in the way he has prepared for us. I hope it blesses you, too!
The Fullers Four 