Game-changer

Six years is a lifetime, isn't it? I have trouble remembering what I did last week in the order it was done, but I can remember everything about six years ago, though it was another life. Six years. Only one dog and one cat of the current menagerie was with us as we scampered away from New Orleans. We were leaving for our lives, we thought. Turns out it was leaving our lives, for we never really got them back. Six years later and the deaths of loved ones and loved pets and loved times and here we are.

It was Katrina, that witch that took us away from our kids, our grandchild and future grandchildren, our house, my job that I was enjoying and settled in and even our church. Katrina, which changed the way we viewed our lives, viewed who we were, viewed what would come next. Katrina, that date by which we figure out all other dates.

But, and it's a big, big ol' but... there's a Darius Rucker song out right now that talks about how every little action a person takes leads one to the moment one is living, and I truly believe the Bible is echoed by the lyric. If not for Katrina, we wouldnt' be here, where God is loving us, well, me, into submission. We all simply must live for the moment, God's moment, for peace to exist in our lives.

Joseph, he of slavery and being sold by his brothers, said to those same brothers when they had been brought back together that the brothers had mean evil but God had meant good for that action. Every action is not governed by God, but it is allowed and monitored and everything is turned to the good, according to the Apostle Paul.

Katrina, good? Losing everything we had worked for, good? More importantly and badly, losing hundreds of lives through flooding and such, good?

Yes.

The Apostle Paul, writing from jail, had this to say: "⁸Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. ⁹ The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you."

The God of peace allows game-changing hurricanes? Huh? Really?

Yes.

Say, just as a maybe, I move to the northshore, take up two churches, take up prison ministry go to prison to serve and something I say or do as a vessel of God's grace changes the heart and thus the life of a prisoner. Say a hurricane was the cause of that move. Is it all worth it? To the prisoner I would reckon the answer would be a resounding YESSSSS. Could it be so for me? Only if I remember their were probably just as many unknown actions that led to that moment when I fell to my knees in submission before a holy but loving God and accepted that singular fact that not only could I not save myself, but I needed help to even reach toward that one who could.

The God of peace allows game-changing hurricanes? Allows stuff I detest because of the changed game? Allows bad to shape my good?

Oh, my goodness, er, His goodness YESSSS.