Dress Rehearsal

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 (NIV)

This morning, it looked like Fay would make landfall somewhere in our area, so we continued prepping our museums. By noon, we realized that the storm was moving east and probably not going to affect us, but with visions of Hurricane Charley who did not make up his mind where he would go until just before landfall, we continued on with our work. By 1:00, I was at our maritime museum helping put up aluminum storm shutters. Some of the neighborhood residents scoffed at our efforts. The newly restored 1912 schoolhouse has survived many storms and never been shuttered before. Still, we worked on. and I am glad that we did for not only did we discover that it takes a long time to put the shutters up, but we were missing half the wing nuts to hold them in place. Next time, we will have more volunteers to help and no one will have to run to the hardware store to get supplies at the last minute! At 4:00, I ran by my office to shut down and cover my computer in garbage bags before coming home with aching shoulders and tired feet. I just finished cooking supper when we lost our electricity. Now, we are prepared for power failure in storms. We live on an island and our electricity comes to us via cables strung across the bay. It flickers off and on even in a minor summer thunderstorm. The odd thing was that there was not even in hint of wind in the air yet. Husband had just come home, pushed the button to open our electric gate and stopped his car to pick up the trash cans when he heard a boom followed by a crash. He looked up to see sparks flying out of the electric transformer as a tree limb gave way. The next thing he knew a live power wire was on the ground ten feet in front of him. A phone call to 911 dispatched fire trucks who stayed until the power crew and tree trimmer arrived. All the men in the neighborhood enjoyed watching the work. I stayed inside in the dark lying on the bed with my feet up sweltering with no air conditioning. Just a dress rehearsal for a hurricane. While I lay there, two things occurred to me. What if we had waited to put up the storm shutters until a really big hurricane was on its way? What if there were no wing nuts left at the hardware store? Wasn’t it a good thing to find out now rather than later? What if that loose tree limb had knocked out our power in the midst of the storm? It would have taken a lot longer than four hours to get our power back on, and I would have been a very miserable camper. What I perceived as bad was really for my good. That’s the way God always works in storms as well as life.