The eye of Hurricane Ida passed within a few miles of our home. We lost power and water — we’re on a well – for just over five days. We lost most of the food in our fridge for the second time in a month, because our old fridge died two weeks earlier.
But we hadn’t fully restocked the fridge. Friends loaned us a generator and a window a/c unit, let us shower at their homes, fed us and checked on us continually.
And so many other people won’t have power or water for many more weeks, and some have no homes to return to.
We are blessed.
A few days ago, I headed toward the garden to grab a 5-gallon bucket so we could get lake water to flush the toilets. I put my foot on the top tread of steps on the end of the deck — we rarely use those steps — not knowing the wood had rotted. They collapsed and took me with them. A 5-foot fall, landing on my side and back on the broken steps, with my ankle between 2x12 treated boards.
After help from the neighbors and a couple of hours in the ER, I am walking with a boot and crutches, but my ankle doesn’t appear to be broken. It will hurt for a while but it could have been so much worse.
I didn’t catch or land on rusty nails, break any bones, hit my head or land on the black widow spider I saw while I was on my back.
I am blessed.
But if Ida had ravaged our home, if I had lost everything including my family, if my fall had all but claimed my life ... I could still honestly say I am blessed.
Bad stuff happens because bad stuff happens. Good stuff – real good stuff – is always from God.
I can say like Job said in scripture after losing all that mattered to him, “Even if He slays me, I will praise Him,” because of all the good God has done in my life.
Heartbeats. Breaths. Salvation.
Whew. How blessed.
I hope you will take just a minute today to realize how blessed you are. And I hope you realize all your blessings are from God.
Then you can join me in saying how blessed we are.
Oh, how blessed.
Brett Campbell can be reached at ChunkyBrett@mail.com.
