Meditation on Grace
Given February 26, 2006
Last year, on August 29th, Hurricane Katrina aimed herself at the Gulfcoast. Millions of people from Texas to Florida restlessly watched, worried, and prepared to either stay or go, as Meteorologists and forecasters struggled to provide landfall predictions. Countless others sat as spectators entranced, watching the weather bulletins stream across the bottoms of their TV screens, perhaps occasionally switched over to The Weather Channel to see and hear the live reports.
I remember thinking to myself at the time:
· Where is it going to hit?
· Who was going to be most affected?
· How bad is this really going to be? After all, storms like this have been predicted before only to fizzle out into a tropical depression!
The rains came first, followed by the winds, and then the seas. In the Gulfport Mississippi area, a huge storm surge came ashore, unstoppable, indiscriminant. The waves, measuring in some areas up to 28 feet deep, swept ashore... Nothing in its path was spared; nothing was left unchanged!
About 2 weeks ago, We arrived in Gulfport/Biloxi.
Just getting to Mississippi was remarkable.
Everyone managed to get safely to the airport after a significant snow storm just a day before
All on the same flight
All with our luggage
On the way to Gautier Presbyterian church where we were staying, we traveled down a coastal highway (Highway 90) through Gulfport Mississippi; it was on this drive that we first witnessed, what can only be described as obliteration.
On the corner of Highway 90 and 24th Avenue we stopped, got out of our vans and with mouths open in amazement walked into the First Presbyterian Church of Gulfport Mississippi:
The brick walls were broken
The pews, hymnals and bibles washed away
Up front, golden organ pipes barely holding onto the wall behind the place where the alter once stood.
Strewn all around was rubble.
But in back was a high choir loft, unclaimed by the waters, its white railing still gleamed before the broken windows
I kept looking back as if waiting as if hearing a plea.
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the Light
Take my hand, precious Lord
Lead me home.
We all looked at each other, heads shaking, and said... I never expected this!
We were up early the first morning, gathering our tools, loading vans, cleaning up spilled coffee; (we hadn’t fully figured out how to outwit the coffee machine yet) We then gathered arm in arm in a circle for a prayer. The purpose of our mission was about to begin.
Although we didn’t say the words that day, it was Serving Grace that lead us there.
· It was Serving Grace that lead Kerry and Carter to contact Gautier Presbyterian church asking.. How can we help?
· It was Serving Grace that led so many bake cookies, cakes, brownies, and to provide a literal truckload of snacks.
· It was Serving Grace from the many that donated money toward the significant expenses of this trip.
· The phone lists, the tetanus shots, the coordination of getting together all of the tools and talents...That was Serving Grace.
· I was Serving Grace when I saw familiar handwriting on the lovely prepared Valentine bags we all received.
· It was Serving Grace by those that said.. Yes I’ll go... I want to help
About 15 of us went to the Rivera house, It was there that 58 year old Maggie Rivera stepped out of her 30 foot FEMA trailer to welcome us but only after her 7 teacup poodles ran out to the fence to bark out their greeting. Mrs. Rivera lead us into her house, a big house, set up about 8-10 feet off of the ground with a wrap around porch, just feet from a bayou.
She talked as she showed us around.
· She talked of evacuating north to a friends house just prior to the storm.
· of moving her husband’s (Napoleon) tools, and other valuables, upstairs for safe keeping because… in past storms they had never had any flooding problem... they’d be safe there.
· of coming home after the storm and seeing all of the years of work and memories washed over.
· She talked of living in a tent until December, and told us of her gratitude to that a gentleman from the Red Cross came to help after one night when her tent blew over in a storm.
· She said’ I didn’t know what to do!
· She talked of going through 10 gallons of Clorox bleach trying to clean up the mess, only to have people tell her ‘the only way to take care of this is to rip it all out’!
· She told us of her gratitude for our church and all of the other churches for sending out people to help.. She said “without them I don’t know what we would have done”
Although she didn’t say the words that day, it was Sustaining Grace Mrs. Rivera was talking about.
· After water and food, the most commonly requested item from those displace by Katrina was a Bible. That’s Sustaining Grace
· It was Sustaining Grace that lead a woman to respond to Presbyterian Disaster helpers saying “I’m too blessed to be distressed”
· It is Sustaining Grace when with eye’s welling up we heard “We the don’t know what we would ever have done without the Church People”
Time doesn’t allow for a full recounting of all the good that was done by our church while down in Mississippi. There are so many stories to be told, ask anyone that went, I‘m sure that any of us would love to share their story.
I will tell you that we sanded a lot! then we sneezed a lot
We laid on buckets of joint compound, and then sanded some more and then we sneezed a lot.
We ate a lot
Laughed a lot
Some of us were attacked by terrorist bugs, while others where startled by a raccoon “with an attitude” hiding above a ceiling that was being torn down.
A termite damaged shed was rebuild
One whole house was completely gutted, stripped of moldy drywall, re-wired, re-insulated and re-dry walled.
Throughout the week we felt God uplift us through his Serving grace the grace that Jesus showed us to live. We saw act of generosity and giving... giving without expectation. We also saw Gods Sustaining grace, a grace given at special times of need, especially during adversity or suffering. A grace of uplifting and support.
Serving grace…. Sustaining grace…
“Perhaps some of these distinctions are a bit arbitrary, but the point remains that grace is manifested in a variety of ways. Grace seeks us and saves us; grace keeps us secure; grace enables us to serve and to endure the tests and trials of life. Grace will bring about our sanctification in this life and will ultimately bring us to glory.”
We know now more than ever that from beginning to end we are the object of God s divine grace.
We left for Mississippi to help, There went up a plea, and God was there, and God filled us with his manifold grace.