Parent Update

In case you're wondering, my parents are doing okay. I was able to talk to my mother last Friday (9/2) and again tonight (Thursday, 9/8). They got power back Wednesday afternoon just before 2pm. No telephone at my parents house. My father can call out on his cell, and I can call my grandmother. No mail delivery yet. One poor woman's house was destroyed, and then she was in a car wreck and broke her neck and back. Please pray for her.

My parents and grandmother count themselves extremely blessed through all of this. Why were they spared significant damage in the midst of the devastation? I don't know, but I thank God (seriously) that it was so.

Many people will ask why, but I think that's the wrong question. It's probably not the wrong question for those that never acknowledge God as the author of anything good in their life. He is the Grand Tyrant waiting to smash people with His Grand Thumb. Instead, sometimes, things happen, and we must trust that God knows what He's doing, and that He's sovereign.

Instead of "Why?", perhaps a better question is "How?" How is God seeing people through these trying times? How is God able to work through these people's lives now? How is He speaking to them? These people who have lost everything must now be dependent upon others to help them. No pride can stand in their way. All they can do is accept the love poured out to them.

And believe me, here in Houston, people are pouring time, money, and supplies, opening their housing up, donating cars (a handful anyway), providing jobs, etc. One large church has 17,000 trained volunteers mobilized for serving in the Astrodome, which is more people than are being housed there. The demonstration of love here is absolutely amazing and stunning. I would never have expected it to be like it is. Crime has gone down in Houston the past couple of weeks, even as its population has increased by over 200,000 people, an increase of roughly 10% (and that's just Houston city limits, not including surrounding areas).