Good morning…
With a wild storm in the middle of the night, our internet was out, making writing our blog post impossible. Letting our dogs out, they anxiously stepped through downed debris to relieve themselves.
When I turned around, the power went out. Complete black. We were unplugged from all light. I had no idea how to locate our candles and lighters in the pitch black of night. Flashes of lightning broke, sudden and sporadic, but darkness was clearly winning this battle.
So, I surrendered into our bed, and God inspired prayers for all of the homeless people out in these drenching high winds, unprotected and wide awake with me at 4:00 am. I prayed for all the Hurricane survivors on the coast whose lives have been ravaged again and again and again over the past few months. I prayed for all those who have lost loved ones and livelihood to deadly storms, hurricanes, wildfires, cancer, coronavirus, suicide, addiction. I prayed for all of us now swept up in the raging wind of polarizing politics, racial rioting, spreading sickness, growing grief, and unsettling uncertainty.
As I lifted my list of concerns to the LORD, my wealth of worries fell off, gently drifting me to sleep. To me, this is the absolute best way to fall asleep, exchanging a cascade of cares for total trust in the God who sees all, who loves all, who is in the process of redeeming everything.
When we woke this morning, still no power. No coffee. No hot shower. No hair dryer. No computer charging. No power at the church where I work. No power at the school where my husband works. So after driving through debris and downed trees for over an hour, we finally found a coffee shop with power, wi-fi, and a warm cup of coffee.
As we sit quietly across from one another, plugged into the needs of our individual ministries, it feels like adaptation is the name of our game nowadays. In so many ways we are all being asked to be fluid with our fruitfulness, lifting prayers day and night for those who crave God’s loving care, finding ways to peacefully plug into different spaces and places with God on the behalf of each other.
Paul explains the power of plugging into prayer, prayer for those near and prayer for those far.
We don’t want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us… It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like we’d been sent to death row, that it was all over for us.
As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing.
You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation—I don’t want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God’s deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part (2 Corinthians 1:8-11, MSG).
May we continue to plug into the power of God’s rescue operation, trusting wholeheartedly, “My prayers are crucial.”
…Sue…
