Last remembrance

What if one day I had no words?

What if one day the thing I think I do best,I couldn't do?

How would I react? How would I function?

There are many out there who have to find that out, against their wishes.

Today five years ago, Katrina had come and gone and things were not that bad. Then, suddenly, the levees broke and things were worse than anyone thought they could be. It isn't often that a person can pinpoint a day that their life changed forever. I can. It was this date.

Looking back I see more similarities with the Nehemia case.

Nehemiah 2: 10
But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of my arrival, they were very angry that someone had come who was interested in helping Israel.
The city officials did not know I had been out there or what I was doing, for I had not yet said anything to anyone about my plans. I had not spoken to THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL LEADERS, THE OFFICIALS OR ANYONE ELSE IN THE ADMINISTRATION. But now I said to them, "You know full well the tragedy of our city. It lies in ruins and its gates are burned. Let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and rid ourselves of this disgrace.
Four years ago I wrote this: Today I will journey into the city. I will head directly into areas that have few people still. I will go to a high school that is a shell of itself, though it has certainly fared better than most. I will talk to persons who were forced into exile a year ago. I will talk to them about their return, about what they lost and what they will never regain.

It disturbs me daily that people have to meet to make a plan to make a plan. It disturbs me that there is no one who will simply step up to the plate and say, this isn't cutting it. We need to rebuild. Or this isn't worth it, we're not rebuilding, we're bulldozing.

It's a year. People are dying from stress, literally. People are not dealing with the pain and the loss and they're taking their own lives in some instances.
And we talk, seriously, about comedy shows and fireworks.

Nehemiah 2:19:
But when Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem the Arab heard of our plan, they scoffed contemptously, "What are you doing, rebelling agains the king like this!"

There will always be naysayers, doubters, those who say they can't, or we can't, and the will be those who don't and those who won't.
We follow a God who can and does. We need to be like him. We're trapped only if we choose to be.

The fact remains that I'm still grieving for a lost life. Now, I understand intellectually that God has placed me where He wanted me. But my heart, my heart? How much of this journey was me making dumb decisions and how much of it was God moving me along? I'll not know, I suspect, till I am in the throne room with him

As I write, I'm listening to a cut of my son's CD, Too Old Now, and I can't get those words out of my mind. I'm too old to start over, too old to wander and probably too old to wonder.

I've lived through a hurricane that killed others, not been directly affected by a flood that galvanized a nation and shrunk a great America city by 100,000. What now?

Goodbye Katrina. Let me rest in peace.