God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3 NIV

I couldn’t sleep Sunday night, thinking of disrupted lives. Our oldest son lives in Tampa where Hurricane Helene hit.  Moving up the coast, this unpredictable storm then devastated Asheville, NC, a treasured spot that Mike’s brother and wife plus many of our friends call home.

A camera shot of a broken-off chunk of Interstate 40 near Asheville has lodged in my mind’s eye.

We used to live in Asheville, so when the storm hit this past weekend, I imagined the details of many individual lives totally altered.  I thought of those who months ago secured wedding venues in Asheville. Then I pictured pregnant moms whose water broke in the middle of the night in a house without power or water, unable to get out to a hospital.  Have a few distressed husbands tried calming panicky wives all the while delivering their baby?

As of this first day in October, 2024, they say it’ll be weeks before the water repairs are done.

Down in Tampa, Graham and his family have power and water, but are concerned about their house due to a live wire lying on a tree branch dangerously close. Their neighbors are worried as well, since their houses sit close by.

When my Texas cousins suffered during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, I prayed daily.  But this feels different.  We’ve lived in Asheville, we know Tampa, and we are connected to far more people. 

I realize now how little I invest emotionally when tragedies and disasters strike parts of the world where I have no connection. I feel sad, and I ‘might’ offer a prayer, but my care ends there. Not so with our God.

‘Where is God in all this?’, someone might ask. Right with those suffering and those rescuing, a present help.

What can I learn at a distance that will prepare me now for when my ‘mountains’ collapse?


First, that the Lord has the right to interrupt ‘my’ life any time. Afterall, he owns it, for he created it. I am used to acknowledging my lack of control when I travel by car or by plane. Those situations bring me face to face with my powerlessness. I FEEL how ephemeral life is.

In those occasions I balk inwardly at that reality because I do long for a safe life seasoned with joy-producing novelties and happy interruptions.

The Holy Spirit uses this longing or ‘Sehnsucht’ as C.S. Lewis named it, reminding me that one day, what I know how God designed me to be will be satisfied. You and I were made to live forever.

And second, God grows my resolve loosely to hold to current circumstances and possessions. They are but temporary.  In the meantime, may I be faithful to pray for others, using my God-given imagination and doing what I can to help, even if at a distance.