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in a Kentucky
Ice storm |
Once again, welcome back, my beautiful readers.
As promised, I wanted to talk about and share my experience that I entitled 'Faith in a Kentucky Ice Storm.'
Depending on where you live, Winter is currently either a memory, or a current experience. For me, in my currant location, winter has faded, and Spring is slowly elbowing it's way to the fore. Now, my husband and I are used to bad weather. We lived in Wyoming for many years, and winter is hard there. But like any resident, you adapt to your surroundings, and bad weather and dealing with it just becomes a way of life. You do what you have to do.
So when we moved our family to Kentucky back in 1996, we were unfamiliar with Kentucky winters. My first experience with winter was shocking. One early morning school day, I learned that school had been canceled. "Why?" Because of the snow. What snow? because there was just a skiff of snow on the roads! But, yep, no school. In Wyoming, there could be 2 feet of snow on the ground and the school buses are running, so 'SHOCKED' I was!
The other thing I was not used to about Kentucky winters is rain. (It rains in Kentucky in the winter time? That's just messed up!) Yep. It rains in the winter, and that causes ice. So here we are, watching it rain, knowing that there is going to be ice on EVERYTHING! Which, I have to admit, is awful pretty, even when it tops the snow beneath it. It makes for terrible driving conditions, weighed down and broken trees, busted power lines, and practically a state of emergency with news broadcasters advising no unnecessary travel.
OK, so take the Ice Storm of 2009, the result of which brought ice, of course, along with all of the above mention conditions. Papa and I are home, enjoying the warmth of our wood stove, watching TV, having just finished dinner, no doubt. It is dark outside, and to us, it is just another winter night. For some reason, though, papa stepped outside. When he comes back into the house he says, "you ought to go outside, you can hear the storm." 'What? Hear the storm!?' What ever on earth is he talking about? So I go to the front door and pop my head out. Dead silence. Then, I hear it, CRACK! Then I hear another CRACK! and another CRACK! and another! Then I realize, that all around us, (we are surrounded by trees on our 80 acres) trees are CRACKING from the weight of the ice on them. That is all you can hear, CRACKING! EVERYWHERE! The closest victim of all that ice was my Royal Empress tree in the front yard, which I planted way to close to the house on account of I had no idea how big she would get! (She does not fair well in the winter.) Always she leaves me broken limps. Our biggest concern was that one of those broken limbs would strike the stove pipe coming up out of the roof that was for our wood stove. That is all we need, but surprisingly, the stove pipe escaped damage.
The trees were not the only thing struggling due to the excessive weight on them, power lines as well. Yep, you guessed it, we lost our power. Not to worry, we have heat from our wood stove, and we light the candles to help illuminate our way. It's just another winter night that us 'Wyoming pros' can handle, so off to bed we go.
In the morning, we realize that the power is still off. No big deal, we have our wood stove for heat, and our gas kitchen stove for cooking. Coffee? Not a problem, we have a peculator, and soon, we are enjoying our morning coffee and cooking up breakfast. We don't sweat the small stuff as we are confident that the power company will have us up in running again in no time.
(Turns out, we would wait for 12 days to have our electric back.)
We look outside, and everything is white, bright, and covered with ice, and I do mean everything. I am thinking 'pretty,' and it is the kind of pretty that makes ya wanna get yer camera and just go crazy taking pictures. IJS.
Knowing that our narrow country road is probably littered with downed trees, papa and dude who lived on the property with us, suit up, fire up the tractor, grab the chainsaws, and start heading for the highway. Now, mind you, we live a mile, yes (1) mile off of the highway, so that's a lotta stuff going on in between us and the main road, and sure enough, all the neighbors were gunna have to cut their way out. Everyone, every male, that lived off of the incoming road, was out there with their winter gear and chain saws, clearing a path on the road. They were thrilled to pieces when papa and dude rounded the corner and they caught sight of 'Big John' (that what I called the tractor.) Big John was the workin'est tractor we had ever owned.
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Big John
Photo taken in Nov 2004 |
It takes us a while to clear our way to the main road. Later in the afternoon, papa is thinking, and voices that thought, "I'll bet Mark and Shirley (our spiritual mom and dad) don't have any electric. Poor Mark, he has no way to make coffee." More importantly, "they have no heat as their house is all electric," papa concludes. He's right, they wouldn't have any heat. "We should take them the kerosene heater." We had a kerosene heater in our shed, so we grabbed it, loaded up in our 4X4 Suburban, and headed for town.
Now, unbeknownst to us, there was a conversation and a situation going on at Mark and Shirley's house that went something like this: They woke up and had no heat. "Let's go to Lowe's and get a heater." So they headed into town to buy a heater. ALL SOLD OUT. Then Ms Shirley says to Mark, "Let's get a jug and go get kerosene." To which Mark replied "But we don't have a heater." To which Ms Shirley says, "Jehovah will provide the heater, let's just get the kerosene." To which Mark replies "OK." So off they went in search of kerosene.
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| Our road leading to the highway |
Ms Shirley didn't know that we had a kerosene heater, but she knew that Jehovah would provide.
Wow! What a demonstration of faith on her part! That demonstration of faith on her part touched me in a way that has stuck with me, even after all these years. She trusted in Jehovah to provide! Little did we know that when papa and I made the decision to take Mark and Shirley the kerosene heater that we were being used by Jehovah to help strengthen Ms Shirley's faith in Jehovah that he would provide, which in return, strengthen my faith in Jehovah that he would provide, which I hope will in turn, strengthen you, my dear readers, and your faith in Jehovah.
What does this scripture mean to you?
Hebrews 11:6
Moreover, without faith it is impossible to please God well, for whoever approaches God must believe that he is and that he becomes the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him.
The following is taken in part from:
DRAW CLOSE TO GOD
“The Rewarder of Those Earnestly Seeking Him”
We “must believe that” God is “the rewarder.” Whom does Jehovah reward? “Those earnestly seeking him,” says Paul. A reference work for Bible translators notes that the Greek word rendered “earnestly seeking” does not mean “going out to find” but, rather, implies coming to God “in worship.” Another reference work explains that this Greek verb is in a form that suggests intensity and concentrated effort. Yes, Jehovah rewards those whose faith moves them to worship him with wholehearted love and zeal.—Matthew 22:37.
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Back to my thought. I truly believe that Ms Shirley had the type of faith in Jehovah that was
rewarded on that day. You
can not convince me other wise. To me, it was a powerful demonstration of faith in Jehovah, the God that she loved with her whole soul, and that powerful demonstration of faith is not something that you can really (at least for me) understand until you
see it in action. That faith was
rewarded that day, by Jehovah. Again, you
can not convince me other wise.
Now it's your turn. We all have stories of faith and being rewarded. What's yours?
The following is supplemental information:
ICE STORM 2009: Beauty and Destruction
p.s. as a congregation, we are studying from this book:
Imitate Their Faith
our current lesson
(and my personal all time favorite story in the Bible):
CHAPTER THIRTEEN He Learned From His Mistakes - JONAH
As promised, I wanted to talk about and share my experience that I entitled 'Faith in a Kentucky Ice Storm.'
Knowing that our narrow country road is probably littered with downed trees, papa and dude who lived on the property with us, suit up, fire up the tractor, grab the chainsaws, and start heading for the highway. Now, mind you, we live a mile, yes (1) mile off of the highway, so that's a lotta stuff going on in between us and the main road, and sure enough, all the neighbors were gunna have to cut their way out. Everyone, every male, that lived off of the incoming road, was out there with their winter gear and chain saws, clearing a path on the road. They were thrilled to pieces when papa and dude rounded the corner and they caught sight of 'Big John' (that what I called the tractor.) Big John was the workin'est tractor we had ever owned.
Now, unbeknownst to us, there was a conversation and a situation going on at Mark and Shirley's house that went something like this: They woke up and had no heat. "Let's go to Lowe's and get a heater." So they headed into town to buy a heater. ALL SOLD OUT. Then Ms Shirley says to Mark, "Let's get a jug and go get kerosene." To which Mark replied "But we don't have a heater." To which Ms Shirley says, "Jehovah will provide the heater, let's just get the kerosene." To which Mark replies "OK." So off they went in search of kerosene.
4 comments:
Christa wrote:
Nice.... Miss her too.
My faith building experience was when I went through my divorce. Long story but Jehovah showed me many times that he was with me. I had to put matt6:33 into practice no matter how hard it was. I did the best I could and Jehovah did not let me down. He provided more than what I needed....
Tammy wrote:
Deb thanks for the great read. I miss my Sherlie. Yes she loved her Jehovah.
Danny wrote:
You are so talented I just read your blog. Thanks for your big heart Jehovah loves you :-)
Tammy wrote:
For me that I'm caught up in this wicked system of things what a promising scripture that is.
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