After the Nashville Flood

(This photo was taken on Monday, May 3, 2010. It’s Old Harding Pike, between Morton Mill RD and Poplar Creek RD. The golf course is behind the trees on the right; the red sign belongs to the Active Learning Center on the left. Our house is within walking distance but at a higher elevation.)

I’ve been quiet for a week or so now. My Internet has been down because my phone line was down because the Nashville flood shut down our city for a few days.

We didn’t receive any damage to our home. Other than a ruined digital camera (that got some water damage when taken in the rain to capture some flood photos), our belongings and lives were left untouched.

So grateful. So. Grateful.

And honestly, I’m still processing all that I’ve seen around me during the last week.

Devastation and tears. Generosity and love.

But there’s so much to say. I’m sure I’ll be posting on this in bits and pieces for months, as the thoughts come. As the words form.

A few points I’ve been pondering:

• God is huge. Creator God—who formed the river and the hills and valleys—allowed peril and turmoil and material devastation, in just a few hours. Still, all that we have witnessed and endured is to be subservient to our salvation (see Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer #1).

I’m so very glad that I worship, love, know, and am known by this God, rather than the opposite. His power is mighty. His ways are mysterious. His grace washes over us, just as the flood waters did a week ago.

• God is so concerned with the detail of our lives that it simply astounds me. I’ve been listening and reading to all of the important considerations about mold and mildew removal. It can be deadly! I had no idea. But God did.

In Leviticus, he gives explicit instruction for mold, mildew, and disease removal from homes. How many times have I read that passage, glassy-eyed and yawning, thinking, Yea, yea, yea. Whatever? Yet hearing these news reports (and apparently how easy it is to not remove mold properly), I am impressed more and more at the tender compassion of God, that he would not want his children to get sick or die from disease caused by mold.