I’ve lived in Florida for 19 years now, and I’ve never seen anything quite like Helene.  She’s not my first storm by any means – I clearly remember Michael, Irma, and Ian among others. In fact, my first Florida storm happened before I moved here, and it was the first storm of that season.

I was working for a contract security company in Connecticut, and one of my co-workers was in the National Guard. As was the norm each year, he left for his two-week annual deployment, this time to Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami. Partway through his deployment a massive storm developed: it became Hurricane Andrew. Ron, my co-worker, would spend his deployment in the middle of one of the worst hurricanes in history up to that point (it still ranks in the top 5 in terms of impact).

We worried about him, prayed for him, and looked forward to him making it back to Connecticut, and when he did return he had quite a story to tell. He told us that the storm was so fierce that blades of grass had become embedded in walls; trees were obliterated; and buildings were blown to shreds, including the one he was working in. Somehow, he survived the disintegration of his shelter, made it through the storm, and came home.

As I think about Helene now, less than two days after it ravaged the coastline of my state and continues to wreak havoc well inland, I look forward to hearing and reading stories like Ron’s – stories of survival, stories of miraculous deliverance from record storm surge, and stories of resilience in the middle of catastrophe. 

Today, many in Florida, the Carolinas, and Tennessee are suffering. Many have lost everything, and some have lost their lives. In the middle of this, it’s hard to see the hand of a loving God, but as sure as I’m sitting at my laptop writing this He is there.  If you’re reading this and you were impacted, know that I am not going to glibly spout fluffy platitudes. It HURTS where you are, and I confess that I don’t understand why one is spared and another is not (especially since I am once again among those who were spared). What I will say is that in the darkest moments of my life – I’ll write about some of them another time – I knew in my deepest heart that the God who gave His own Son for me was and is still there.

If you would like to leave a word of encouragement for those impacted by this storm, please feel free to comment. I look forward to hearing from you.

Until the next turn, 

Gordon