I’m here! Sometimes I have to stop and pat my arms and my legs and tell myself, “I’m here.” Yes, a disaster happened. But I’m here. There have been painful and traumatic moments, moments of feeling with overwhelming sadness and fear. But I’m here. I pat my legs and arms and head and remind myself, that in spite of all that happened on June 20th and in the days following, I AM HERE!
I am here. I have survived all the ups and downs and overwhelming challenges of this first year. It wasn’t easy, but I am here! And I feel grateful -- for my family, my friends, the strangers who showed up to help at the church and at our home, food and water which appeared at the right time, donations which helped bridge the gaps, people from across North America who took time off work and from vacations to come and help when they heard. God’s abundance flowed to us in so many ways.
While tears and sadness, strange dreams and frustration, poor memory and low energy still thread their way through my life, as I approach the one year mark post-flood, I am choosing to look forward in faith and in hope. If you are an Indiana Jones fan, in the third movie, Indiana is closing in on the Holy Grail. He must cross a large chasm and he is told to step out in faith. All of his senses tell him that to step out over the chasm will mean falling to his death, but in faith, he steps out and discovers that there is a stone bridge, camouflaged, which will take him to his goal.
I feel a bit like Indiana Jones, stepping out on that unseen bridge, putting all my trust and hope in something I can’t really see. I look at the mountains. I check the snowfall. I watch the clouds. But I don’t know. I can’t predict. I can only trust those who know more than me about all the forces that either create or prevent such disasters. I can only trust the dikes and berms and sculpting of the river banks. But if that were all I had to trust in, it would not be enough to calm the fear in my heart and the worries that worm through my brain at night.
What brings me hope, hope that I can really hold on to is found in the words that we say so often together: God is with us; we are not alone. I don’t know how many times I have said those words to myself in this past year and how many times I have repeated Isaiah 41: 10 --
Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you; I will help you, I will hold you up with my strong right arm.
I don’t want my life to forevermore be defined and restricted by having gone through a natural disaster. I don’t want my children’s lives limited by disaster-created fears and worries that haunt them. And so at some point – this point – I’m choosing, like Indiana Jones, to step out in faith and in hope, leaning into those words of God’s presence and strength, to show my children the path of hope.
I know that I will still have moments of sadness and fear, and I’ll hold those moments with all the love and gentleness I can muster, knowing that those feelings will soften when I acknowledge their presence in my life. I know that there is still hard work to do in this community of rebuilding lives and homes and businesses; I’m not going to pretend that everything is normal when it is not.
But I am here! And I am choosing to look at the community of High River with eyes of hope and faith and gratitude. I’m opening my eyes to the restoration that is happening. I’m offering gratitude for all the people who are working so very hard. I’m holding in my prayers those who have yet to find resolution around their homes and businesses. Mostly, I’m looking for God, whose power at work within us truly is doing more than we can begin to ask for or imagine. I am here and, leaning on God’s strong arms, I’m stepping forward in hope.
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