Thursday, April 28, 2011

Sweet Home Alabama


And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

As you may know, I'm a born and raised Alabama girl. Yesterday, my home state was devastated by a swarm of angry tornadoes. I know a lot of people have a hard time understanding how God can let things like this happen. I don't know the theology of weather...I just think we all spit in the milk so we can't be surprised if sometimes it tastes ruined. What I do know is that God is in the details...and sometimes can use bad things to spare us from worse things...or to help us realize where our priorities should be. We humans have a bad habit of getting caught up in the small picture.

Yesterday my sister stopped to go to the bathroom and her bathroom stop kept her from making it to her destination...a small community that was decimated by a large tornado. In her weakness, God showed His strength.


A few days ago, my sister's elderly mother-in-law fell. She was staying at my sister's house so my brother-in-law could help her get to a doctor appointment. Her home is now obliterated.  In her weakness, God showed His strength.

My sister, a nurse for the state of Alabama, was called to a hospital to triage patients.  A young man we grew up with, now an EMT, recognized my sister and immediately saw that she could help a woman who was stricken with grief...she sent her mother home to rest after watching after her ailing father in the hospital and mother died on the way home.  The woman, a Christian, had so many questions about when the pain would get better.  My sister called upon the experiences of losing our parents to give hope to the woman and remind her that Christ's sacrifice means this is not goodbye forever. 
In her weakness, God showed His strength.
Pray for the people affected by these tornadoes and that they can see God's love for them in the details to come.

I'm going to leave you with a song.



6 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this today. My prayers are definitely with everyone affected by these storms!

    Jennifer :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. MaryLane, I am going to copy your post link to my facebook page so everyone I know can come here and be blessed. God has given you words of comfort today,,, thank you for blessing me! (((hugs)))

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow. Amazing what you had to share. Blessings, indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. God DOES have a plan. We just need to remember to stop and listen to him. I'm glad your sister stopped, and that her mother-in-law is also safe. I'm praying for the many, many others that have been affected in so many ways.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Goodness! What a blessing to have our strength in God!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mary, our town, Ringgold, GA, was devastated by one of the tornadoes on April 27, as well. Since the day after the storm, our church has been offering food, relief and volunteer teams for the victims. Thankfully, we were spared, although many homes were lost and 8 lives were lost in our small county. Our church was in the middle of the devastation. We only lost our sign and had a couple of trees down. Our pastor has asked me to share in our service tomorrow about how the Lord has been working the last couple of weeks. Amazingly, I had already been thinking about how He is strong in our weaknesses! Then, I read your blog and this post. How encouraging! Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to comment!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...