Living Prepared To Comfort

With this latest hurricane I am being reminded that I want to live my life prepared. Prepared to comfort others in an emergency. Prepared to offer help in any appropriate way.

The time to get prepared is always before hard times and catastrophes. In the middle of day-in, day-out life--that's the best time to prepare. If I wait, it will be too late. May I use my time wisely now, in silent, peaceful times, to grow in grace and humility. To cooperate with God and not miss His voice and His instructions which, if followed, will always have me in the right place at the right time offering the right kind of help.

Here's a note I found on the internet a few minutes ago--a note which reminded me of the need to be ready--to live ready to encourage and to be kind:


'The haunted look in someone's face'

From the mailbag:


I overheard two women talking about Hurricane Katrina on Thursday. One woman said "I don't care what they say, I think all those projections are wrong and I think it's gonna come to New Orleans". After looking at the projections online I immediately dismissed her as a quack. Of course, now that I am bunkered down in a hotel room in Alexandria with six other people, five cats and two dogs, I kinda wish I had listened on Thursday.

I wanted to share our experience here in Alexandria. The entire hotel is filled with people from New Orleans, Metairie etc. You can see, every once in a while, the haunted look in someone's face as it finally hits them: "I may have nothing left tomorrow".

And when that look starts to cross someone's face one of the employees here walks over, cracks a joke, pats your shoulder, or just talks to you to make you feel better. These amazing people are handing out blankets and pillows and opening the doors of every conference room, ballroom, and whatever-is-left room in this hotel to house everyone they can fit in the doors. There are dogs and cats of every size and shape in many of the rooms, and no one working here minds in the least. And it isn't just the hotel. Every restaurant, every local who passes by had some kind word to say to comfort all of us today. I have never felt so welcome, so comforted in the face of devastation, as I have felt here in Alexandria.

I can tell you that I won't sleep a wink tonight. I will watch the weather channel, check the Hurricane Bunker notes, and say a few prayers for the people, the city, and life as we knew it three days ago.

- Claire, from metro New Orleans


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