Quite a Welcome!

   You might have heard on the news that a bad windstorm hit the Detroit area on Wednesday, March 8, knocking out the power for over 800,000 people. The dogs and I watched from the safety of the house as the wind whipped the small shrubs next to the house around and shook the tall trees near the back fence ferociously with a great roar. Sometimes debris would be blowing in one direction, sometimes in another. I had never seen anything like it.

   “Please dear Lord, keep our trees up,” I prayed, “and don’t let any fall on our neighbor’s garage.” The two huge black locust trees in the backyard seemed to hold their own against the winds which exceeded sixty miles an hour at their peak.

   Late that afternoon, our power went out, along with many others. It was a real crisis with downed wires and fallen trees everywhere. Even though additional crews from different states were called in to help, there was no definite time given of when the electricity would be restored.

   We managed to stay in the house one night and most of the next day without electricity, but the temperature indoors kept falling…first to the low 60’s then 50’s. Finally we decided to take the dogs to the kennel and accepted Shanda’s invitation to come and stay with her family. Being there to help celebrate our grandson’s sixth birthday on Saturday took away some of the anxiety of wondering what was happening to our house.  

   After five nights without power in our neighborhood, the electricity was finally restored late Sunday evening. It was nice to be able to return home the next morning, even though we had to drive through a mild snowstorm to get there. About 5 inches of snow had been predicted that day! We were really getting quite a Michigan welcome!

   Thankfully no water pipes had burst, nothing was spoiled in the refrigerator and all the trees were still anchored to the ground. The dogs got to come home from the kennel and things were just getting back to normal when the lights flickered and went out again. Al and I prayed, Shanda prayed and we decided to stick it out—for that night anyway.

   Around 8:30 that evening, the power came back on. Praise the Lord! It was great to feel the warmth filtering through the chilly house again. I was tempted to set the thermostat on 80 degrees and turn on all of the lights in the house!

   One new friend, a single woman living directly behind us, called after our landlines were restored. Unfortunately we hadn’t exchanged cell phone numbers prior to the storm and couldn’t contact each other during that time. She and her two elderly cats had suffered through two nights in the cold house. Then, she packed up her cats, drove to the home of a friend who lived forty-five minutes away and spent the rest of the time there.  

   She and I agreed that it was too bad our neighbors don’t have much contact with each other, whether in a crisis or not. All of the people living across the street from our house had electricity the entire time, but no one offered those of us without power any assistance or even came to check up on us.

   I told her how our dear friends and neighbors in Springville were always ready to help. It was like having family nearby. Perhaps the good that comes from this experience will be closer relationships with next door neighbors and a greater desire to reach out to each other. 

   Thank you, dear Lord, for your protection during the storm, providing shelter as well as a loving family to take care of us and for teaching us an important lesson. Please help us all to reach out to our neighbors, realizing that we really do need each other. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22:37-39 NIV