Thursday, October 03, 2013

The Flood Waters



Pss. 32: 6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.

During the ‘no internet’, the isolation and reflection period, the floodwaters were coming downstream. Yes, the Colorado flood waters.

I live about nine miles out from the Platte River, and all this summer the dryness took it’s toll; grass and weeds were filling the sand where there once was a river flowing. From all angles the riverbed was dry as a bone give or take a vein of water here and there, until recently that is.

Riding over the small bridges that spanned the river, our mouths just hung open in awe of the isolated trickle of water that came through disguised as a river. Before the internet cut off I was watching the Colorado flood waters daily on this here web center. The devastation, the beating of water on houses and cars, and knowing, this will all come our way. Maybe not in the essence that it struck Colorado, but it would move east downstream and wind up in the Platte River.

Adam came home from school last week and had said something about his teacher talking about how dangerous the Platte River was at this time. Toxic material was moving its way through and the river was more like a cesspool of refuse. “Do not go in or near the river and definitely do not touch.” he said!

We shrugged it off in disbelief, but by Friday evening I heard for myself on the news (yeah, no internet caused me to actually watch the news on TV) that the Platte was at flood level and Kearney was under a flood watch. The river cuts right through Kearney.

Sure enough, Sundays church visit (we cross the river) showed us the rushing of water downstream! The river was full, full of sludge and overflowed into nearby lake houses. Just as it sounds the houses have a lake in front of them where people in the houses have little paddle boats and whatnot and actually use the lake. I imagine with the overflow of the Platte into their lake, tests will need to be run on the water to see if it is safe to return to the lake as a playing field.

As I saw the water reaching back into a cornfield, I thought of the cows being let out onto the field and thinking the water was safe, but is it, even for pasture cows? I have no idea; I’m not a farm girl, I’m just a city gal making observations.

What was so weird about the observation was it made me think of Noah and last weeks posts. Yeah, I’m still in my reflecting mode and when these things strike me, I write.

The flood of thoughts washed over me, like I imagine Noah being flooded and asked to prepare for a new world. That’s exactly what I was doing, being flooded and told to prepare. No I don’t believe dinosaurs were on the ark, just as I don’t believe polar bears and penguins were asked to leave the arctic to come on down to climb on board the Ark and the flooding of the land.

When disaster strikes we’re asked to prepare well ahead of time, some do and some choose not to. I know losing the internet is no disaster, far from it, but it does cause a flood of emotion to wash over you causing you time to take a dip in the reflecting pool. I wasn’t prepared to be ‘cut off’ from the internet and that is why I had such a sadness when the thought of non-communication struck me like a sudden onslaught of flood waters.

The thought of not reading my online friends for days was like a sand bur hindering my movement. Although my last post before the interruption of service happened, I had said I was going to retreat, meaning a step back to me, but to them, my three day absence was me retreating, a staying away intentionally. Well EGADS! An intentional staying away of my only friends in life? Why I never!

So I’m back with a flood of messages. Not necessarily ‘writing’ posts, but messages of loving and passion! Writing IS my passion and I love my friends. They are a flood of comfort to my isolated soul!

Pss. 69: 2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

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