Irma And A Little Prayer "Humor"

Hi Y'all,

Well we made it through the storm aka Irma. And we did some serious praying before, during, after and presently praying; however, once again I have learned the importance of really being specific in your prayer, saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

Here is an example from a few years back.  Some of you remember Hurricane Hugo of a few decades ago.  Well I prayed about that like I do now.  I always acknowledge that God rules the winds, waves and rain... or something like that ... and that God is always Sovereign God who can answer "Yes" or "No" to our prayers because He knows best.  I pray for things like weather fronts steering it. I pray for God to provide upper level disturbances. I pray for windshear to weaken the storm, etc.  Well, during hugo all that happened.

However, and yet, up north in NC, on the UMC web site, they were praying, when they saw Hugo coming their way,  for God to "Keep Us In The Midst of The Storm!"  Say What?

Who in their right mind would pray like that? Sure it sounds holy and all that stuff, but its asking God to keep "US." But where is this prayer asking God to keep us? IN THE MIDST OF THE STORM!  Guess what became the "Midst" of Hugo's CAT-4 Storm?  Yup! You guessed it! Those folks in NC found themselves right in Hugo's midst and Hugo in their midst. Lesson learned: Don't pray just to sound good, poetic and maybe even fluid because you will get a lot of wind and fluid right on your head in the form of drenching monsoon like rain.  Pray what makes sense to pray.  Figure out what you care about and be specific about it.  By the way, we didn't get hugo, nor rain, nor fluid nor storm surge ... nor any bad stuff.

But now we come to Irma:  Prayed for CAT-5 180 MPH Irma to be broken and be weakened by wind shear and upper level disturbances.  Sure nuff. Even though it went over 85 degree water, which usually strengthens a hurricane, it became a CAT-3.  Wind Shear showed up just in time. We prayed for it, once it hit land, to weaken, "exponentially and miraculously." Irma did exactly that. It dropped from CAT-3 to CAT -1 dramatically with wind gust hitting CAT-2.  NOW THAT IS DRAMATIC! That IS, in my book, an answer to specific prayer! AMEN? After all it was 180 MPH hurricane Y'all.

Some lessons learned: We prayed for it to go north, and it did. It went north right over our house. There was ZERO damage, but The eye of Irma came right over our houses in Lakeland, Florida !!!! DUH! More specific praying about where it needs to go north to prevent any storm at all might be a bit more intelligent praying.  As they say on Facebook ... LOL!  We prayed for God to put hedges and bubbles shields over the trees and houses our neighborhood.  All trees stood and NO homes showed ANY real damage.  Good!  BUT -THEN we  prayed for the power lines to stay up and for the trees to not fall on them. Our community power lines are all up, and so are our trees. BUT I DID NOT PRAY FOR THE SAME PROTECTION OF THE TRANSFORMERS. AGAIN... DUH!

Lessons learned. Transformers need a little love too :) Guess what happened to our transformers throughout our neighborhood? As soon as the eye of Irma passed over our neighborhood, one after another,  I watched in bewilderment, as all of them popped and exploded one after the other. We then descended into darkness; however,  all our neighborhood powerlines and trees look real good ... but without transformers we have no power. I laugh now that I forgot to pray a little something about the transformational power of God being the protector of transformers.  Even transformers need affection and protection from howling winds. 

Oh Well! The beauty of this is God is good all the time and all the time God is good. Keep on keeping on Y'all. And be blessed without stress.  Pray but be really clear on what you want to happen, and let God just do what God does best which is love you more than you could ever imagine.

Y'all Be Blessed Now... Ya Hear?
SoJourner