January 10 – “Monsoon”

 

 

Our Weatherbug program on the computer helped me get the day started yesterday.  It read 34 degrees at Moody Gardens.  Yikes.  It finally reset itself around 10.  Changed to 64.  That's more like it.

 

Chris was at the hospital with her Dad, so I had the honors of getting Mom up and over to Libbie's Place.  She was actually eating breakfast by 8 and at Libbie's Place by 9:30.  That's a record by far.  The secret is getting her to go to bed around 9 at night.  Maybe.

 

I spent most of the day working on the sermon for Sunday.  And worrying about Chris getting home in the monsoon.  The power even went out here for a few hours.  That made it impossible to work on the sermon, so I paced a while and read by flashlight a while.  One of our neighbors was walking by at one point, so I called out to him and asked if he had power.  He didn't.  Best he could tell in his damp foot travels was that our entire side of the street was out, while the other side of the street was fine.  The rain was certainly the big news around here.  Even more than the national championship football game.  Of course that was probably because there wasn't a Texas team involved.  I actually watched most of that game.  Well, during the first half I flipped back and forth between the game and Hoarders.  Some guy had 30 or 40 cats living in his house.  Evil … the cats, not the guy.

 

Chris called and said many roads were blocked because they were under water.  She had to turn around several times and try a different route just to get out of the Houston Medical Center.    Even when she got on Highway 45, she could see side roads full of stalled cars and deep water.  And to top it all off, she had not had any sleep at all, so she was fighting the urge to sleep at the wheel.  She was going to stop at Kel's in LaMarque to nap, but that exit was under water as well.  She finally made it home around 2:30.  Whew.

 

The reason she had no sleep was not that her Dad was any better or worse.  He's about the same.  They are still trying to fight the pneumonia, and he's having to stay sedated because his heart rate and blood pressure shoot up really high when he comes out of it.  The problem was that one of the other patients died, and the family was mourning loudly in the waiting room.  It was a large family, and they kept arriving throughout the night.  And with every new arrival, the wailing resumed.  Understandable grief, but difficult to sleep under those circumstances.

 

Isaiah 46:11 says, "From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.  What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do."

 

Father, comfort that family who lost their loved one last night.  And thank you for the rain.  Amen.