Living in Florida, we’ve been through a few minor hurricanes since being in Biloxi during Camille a few decades ago, but regardless of a storm’s size or intensity, we’ve come to some conclusions:

• People with well water pumped by electricity should not have to brush their teeth with Pepsi. We now make sure we have plenty of bottled water to drink and a full sink for washing dishes, but for the latter, paper plates and throw-away cups are cause for praise.

• Gas pumps might be ready to power up your car, but they’re powerless and immobile without electricity.

• Downed power lines cut electricity to your house, but not to themselves. They’re perfectly willing to electrocute anyone who steps on them.

• Candles add a romantic glow to the dark, but only a well-designed candle holder will allow you to glow from room to room without giving your hand a hot wax treatment.

• We have batteries! big batteries, little batteries, batteries for flashlights and batteries for the otherwise-unused radio that might keep us in touch with storm reports and the world beyond debris.

• Canned goods and an old-fashioned can opener keep us fed, and a dry bag of charcoal grills up almost anything. Oh, and that humongous smoker the guys just had to have can now be used to cook up whatever is thawing in the freezer, using fuel from fallen branches.

• Garbage cans and yard chairs make amazing projectiles.

So stay safe! And thank God that Jesus gave us a prayer to pray at all times. For these times though, I love how He commanded the winds and water with words that bear repeating: “Peace! Be still!”

In Jesus’ Name, amen.

©2015, Mary Harwell Sayler

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