WHAT A WEEKEND!!!!!!

WOW!!! What a weekend we have had!!!

Talk about a "mixed bag", we've had it!

A dinner with high school classmates, some of whom we had not seen in 40 years, 2 fun birthday celebrations with our oldest granddaughter who turned 4 yesterday and one glorious wedding interspersed among thunderstorms, tornado warnings and tremendous flooding during the worst weather weekend the Mid South has probaby ever seen!!

We had prayed all week for NO rain this weekend, knowing that we had 3 days of events, all of which were slated to be OUTSIDE! I mean we did some serious, no-holds-barred praying for this weather to be re-routed, stalled before it got here or just plain GONE. So when it came, we knew without a doubt that it was in God's plan. So as my sweet mother-in-law would always say "You can't complain about the weather...that's the Lord's work."

So how do we reconcile all the damage and loss sustained by so many this weekend with a loving God? I think that is probably one of the most difficult things we wrestle with as believers. Yet the Bible is full of proof that God allows the sunshine and the rain, the mountain-tops and the valleys. But the one constant is that He is always with us through the storms.

Isaiah 43: 1-5 (KJV) says,

"Fear not for I have redeemed thee, I have called you BY NAME, you are MINE!! When [not if] you pass through [there is a beginning and an end] the waters, I will be with you and through the rivers, they will not overflow you, when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you, for I am the Lord YOUR God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior....since you are precious in my sight....and I have loved you.....Fear not for I am with you!!"

I pray that none of you sustained any major damage in the storm from this weekend, but if you did, just remember that God IS with you and He will see you through one day at a time. He also reminds us in Isaiah 45 that "I will go before you and make the crooked places straight...and I will give you treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places that [the object of the exercise] you may KNOW that I am the Lord."

Yes, even in the very midst of a storm, God will give you "treasures of darkness"...riches and blessings you would have never received had you not walked through the storm. One of the sweetest is that you will KNOW God in a way that you have never known Him before.