“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34

Our pastor delivered a powerful message this morning based on this scripture, which really made me stop and think…and reflect. And whether you are a believer or not, these questions are definitely something to think about.

What words are coming out of your mouth? Are you speaking love or condemnation?

Are you speaking reconciliation or judgement?

Are you trying to exert control over those you speak to, or are you showing the love for others that you say you have?

Do you avoid being around people you believe are living their lives wrong, talk about them behind their backs, or do you reach out to them and treat them the way you want to be treated?

Do you talk AT people without listening to what they have to say, are you too busy to take that extra time to hear THEIR heart, or do you stop and really get to know them, and have a genuine conversation with them?

Do you tell everyone how important it is to forgive, but continue to hold on to resentment and grudges in your own life?

Are you constantly pointing fingers at everyone and telling them how wrong they are, and not stopping to see that maybe you have faults as well?

Are you too busy telling others what they should be doing, and how bad they are if they don’t, or do you take the time to talk to them and try to understand where they’re coming from, so you can have a two way conversation instead of a one way lecture?

Do you find yourself making up stories, telling “little white lies”, because it’s easier than telling the truth?

Do you talk the talk, but forget to walk the walk?

Where is your heart? What’s in it?

What’s really in it? Love, compassion, forgiveness? Or greed, anger, jealousy, and resentment?

Are you really the person you say you are? If someone could look inside your heart, what would they see?

We all need to examine our hearts, our motivations. And when we do, I guarantee each of us, and certainly myself, will discover we need to make some changes.

The question is, will we? Or better yet, do we want to?

What’s your answer?

Like many of you we have been closely following the effects of the recent hurricanes in the Caribbean, Florida, and Texas. Yes, it’s awful.

Devastating.

Catastrophic.

We’re almost glued to our tv’s watching the scenes of hopeless devastation. Destroyed buildings and houses. Cars smashed and overturned. Uprooted trees everywhere. Water streaming down streets and into the bartered remnants of homes. A few people walking amidst the rubble, looking for remnants of anything to salvage, a look of helpless bewilderment on their faces.

The entire island of Puerto Rico has no power. None. We’re told it will likely be up to six months before it’s completely restored. Not days. Not weeks. Months. That would be sometime in March of 2018.

There is no fresh water for drinking, let alone bathing. Water is now a precious commodity that is likely to be hoarded by those lucky enough to have any. We’re told it will be some three weeks before the water supply can be restored.

Communication towers are down. There’s currently almost no way to reach loved ones there to see if they’re ok. A friend of our daughter has most of her family there; she’s seen pictures of the area where they lived and it’s destroyed. She finally heard from them in a two minute call from a military phone two days later, and is so relieved to know they’re ok!

My husband talked to a man the other day whose wife and their 6 children are there, as well as his in-laws. He hasn’t been able to reach them, and is praying they’re all right as well.

How would you feel if it were your family? I’m sure many of you reading this have family and friends there. And you know exactly how they feel.

The airports are closed. They’re trying to get them restored enough so food and other supplies and emergency crews can be brought in, and people can be evacuated. But with only generators for power, many parts of the airports flooded out, and runways littered with debris, this certainly will be difficult, to say the least. Not to mention the lack of fuel or insufficient ways to communicate safely with the pilots from the tower.

It’s a horrific situation to watch…and most likely we haven’t begun to see and hear about all of the devastation, because we’re not there, and there are really no good ways to fully communicate what is actually going on to the outside world.

And over these next few days, sadly, tragically, many may die from lack of medicine, water, food, and exposure. They may die from injuries sustained from the storm, or from trying to help others. These are real people, who had normal lives just a week or so ago.

Now it’s all gone.

We just can’t watch any more.

So we turn off our tv, and go upstairs to get ready for bed, the pictures of this latest disaster still in our minds.

Think about that for a moment.

We have a tv that works because we have electricity. Those hit by the storm don’t. Their tv’s are most likely gone, as well as the local tv stations. And broadcast towers and transmitters.

We go into our bathrooms and brush our teeth and wash our faces. We change into our pajamas. The storm

Victims now have no running water. No way to brush their teeth or wash their faces or flush a toilet. Most likely their only clothes left are the ones they’re wearing.

We get into our comfortable beds between crisp sheets and blankets. The storm survivors are most likely sleeping either on floors, of if they’re lucky, on cots in a makeshift shelter, and certainly without sheets or blankets.

We wake up the next morning safe and secure in our homes, and begin grumbling about the chores ahead of us that day, like grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning the house…. While the storm victims have no homes left. No grocery stores to go to. No laundry to do because everything is gone. Everything. Their homes and all of their possessions. They have to totally start their lives over with only the clothes on their back.

Shall I continue?

Have we become that complacent and forgetful?

The answer is yes, and I’m just as guilty. Because it’s unfortunately human nature for most of us. We take for granted what we have, even after viewing such mass destruction. We’re thankful it’s not us. We donate money for relief efforts, but we really can’t understand what the storm victims are going through. Even imagining in our minds, it’s just not possible.

What would you do if that happened to you? Personally I cannot answer that question, because my mind just cannot comprehend it.

But it does make me stop and think about how very, very fortunate I am. How fortunate my family and friends are.

It also makes me realize that in a split second, or a few hours, it could all change due to circumstances we cannot even begin to control.

Don’t be complacent about your life; your family and friends; your possessions. We are not promised tomorrow, and during such times as we are seeing in the aftermath of these storms, we can clearly begin to see what’s important and what’s not. Petty arguments, perceived offenses over names and statues, not getting a promotion at work, people’s lifestyles you don’t agree with, not having the latest model car or the biggest home on your block…such things in the scheme of life suddenly don’t matter any more. Survival does.

If suddenly almost all you had was taken from you, if you were left with only the clothes on your back, with no food, no place to live, no money and no job to go back to, what would you do?

Think about it, and appreciate what you still have. Because if could still happen to us as well.

If you wish to help with hurricane relief efforts, there are a number of websites that are taking donations. Be sure the one you select is legitimate, as there are unfortunately some out there trying to take advantage of these disasters for their own self interests. Brave members of disaster teams are already there or on their way to help, and we thank each and every one of them, because what they are doing is not easy.

Thank you all for any help you can offer in this relief effort.

“I have nothing to wear!” said the young woman pulling through her closet, discarding outfit after outfit because she didn’t like them any more. “I’m going to have to go shopping right away!”

“We have almost nothing to wear,” said the mother of three young children who fled the recent hurricane in Florida, with only a hastily packed bag of clothes and medications, baby formula and a few toys. Her home was almost destroyed and their belongings that were left behind are scattered to who knows where? “We have almost no money to get anything right now. I hope the Red Cross can help us.”

“Chicken again? We had that two nights ago! I don’t want the same thing again. What else do we have? I don’t want pork chops, and I don’t want spaghetti. There’s just nothing in this refrigerator good to eat. Let’s go out somewhere. Maybe to that new steakhouse, where we can order whatever we want.” Obviously her refrigerator- and stove – are working fine. She just doesn’t want the food she has in her kitchen, and probably doesn’t care if it goes to waste.

Compare that to this: a family in one of the hurricane refugee centers waiting for their evening meal of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lukewarm water because that’s all there is until more supplies arrive the next day. They’d love to have a nice chicken or spaghetti dinner. But right now they’re just happy to have food until they can go back to their home. And hopefully they’ll still have a kitchen they can use and food to prepare in it.

“I’m really tired of this car! I don’t like the color, and I don’t like the model any more. It’s too small and, well, it just doesn’t fit my lifestyle any more. I mean, I need something more sporty. Something that shouts ‘look at me!’ I know it’s only a few years old, and almost paid for, but I just have to have something better! You know how that is!” Sure do; but aren’t your wants and needs a bit misplaced? Consider this…

“The storm ruined both of our vehicles,” the man said sadly. “Totally ruined. The wind blew a tree down on my wife’s car, and the water came up and flooded out my truck. Both were paid off, and both of us need vehicles. Insurance will give us money for both cars, but it’s not going to be enough to replace both of them, not without monthly payments. We just can’t afford that right now. And with all the ruined cars here right now, it’s going to take weeks or even months to find something we can afford. I really don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“I really don’t like this job. I’m not appreciated. It’s not fun, and I don’t like the people I work with. The pay is ok, but I really deserve more. It’s just not what I want to do. I should just quit and look for something else.”

Well, it could be worse. You could be in this person’s situation. “I had a good job. It wasn’t the greatest job in the world but it paid the bills and even gave me a little extra to put away for emergencies. Well now that emergency is here. The business is closed because of the hurricane, and I have no idea if they’ll be able to reopen anytime soon, or even at all. I have no idea what we’re going to do… We have to have an income to survive”

“This house is just not what we want any more. The neighborhood isn’t fun like it used to be. The carpet’s old and needs cleaning. And the house needs painting, too, and that’s a hassle. We need something with more prestige, in a nicer part of town. I wonder if we could get a new mortgage?! And sell this old place? I’m really tired of it.” Really? At least you have a home that’s intact. Paint and carpet are no big deals, you know. That’s easy.

Put yourself in these families’ place. Their homes are heavily damaged, some to the point of being condemned. One mobile home park was totally destroyed. Many families will be returning from evacuation to find nothing left; nothing salvageable. Yes, they have insurance, but think of what they’ve lost and what it will take to rebuild. The months of living in shelters or with others until they can either rebuild or hopefully find something else to buy or rent. No furnishings, not even beds and sheets and towels. No dishes or cookware. Starting totally over with only the few clothes they have left.

How would you or I handle it?

Like millions of other people, we watched the storms as they lashed out in Texas and Florida, pummeling everything in their paths. We prayed and hoped for the best; we worried about friends and relatives in the storms’ path. We were amazed at the strength and severity Mother Nature was unleashing. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.

And we were thankful it wasn’t us. Am I right?

As I’m writing this there are some 8.2 MILLION homes without electricity. It will be days, perhaps weeks, even months in some cases, before power is restored. No refrigeration, no heat or air conditioning. No way to hear news broadcasts except with battery powered radios and televisions, if they have them. No way to charge cell phones or laptop computers. No internet.

No way to get gas from pumps that are powered by electricity, that is, if your can is still drivable. No way to purchase anything if there are even stores open unless you have cash because debit and credit cards won’t work without electricity.

No way to make ice, or keep food cold.

No fresh water. No way to bathe or flush toilets.

Need I go on?

We complain daily about our lives, just like the examples above. Sometimes we have fairly good reasons, but most of the times our complaints are minuscule in comparison to what I’ve described. I still remember the three days we spent without power or running water after Isabel hit us over ten years ago. And that was mild. But we complained. A lot.

Thinking back, we had no reason to complain compared to this.

If you weren’t affected by these storms you have so very much to be thankful for. Unfortunately we usually fail to fully appreciate what we have until we lose it; we take our blessings for granted. We don’t know the value of what we have until we don’t have it any more.

Count your blessings today. And be thankful.

Please note: If you wish to help out with hurricane relief there are a number of agencies and websites where you can donate. Check on your favorite search engine to find the one that’s right for you.

For just a few seconds. Try to put yourself in their places.

Try to imagine what they’re feeling.

Put yourself in their shoes.

In half an hour you’re going to be on the road. You’re going to be driving north. To where, you really don’t know. You don’t know where you’ll find a place to stay. Or when. Or how long. If you’ll be able to find gas for your car when you run out. Where you’ll find food. Or when your cash supply will run out.

You have no idea what your future holds. Whether you’ll have a job to return to. Whether your children will have a school to go back to. Or worse, if you’ll have anything left of your home to go back to.

You walk through each room, taking pictures, and wanting to take certain precious souvenirs and mementos with you, but there’s not enough room. All you can take is a few clothes, your medications, supplies for your kids and your pets, your Bible, and if you’re lucky, your laptop computer with hopefully all of your important information stored on it.

You pick up framed photos of long deceased family members and feel like you’re leaving them behind to fend for themselves. You pick up other photos and remember other happy times, weddings, birthday parties, and Christmas mornings lived and enjoyed in that house.

Will there ever be those opportunities again?

Will your neighbors and friends be back? Will you? Will there be anything to return to? So many unknowns. And it doesn’t make it easier knowing you’re not the only one in this predicament.

Your future is totally uncertain. But your main focus right now is protecting your life and the lives of your family.

So you go, locking the doors behind you, saying goodbye to the home which has been your shelter and your safe haven for so long. The tears well up and overflow as all of you drive away to what you hope will be safety.

But there are so many others out there in the path of this storm that are in more desperate circumstances than you are, some with no real choices, and some who decided to stay out of a sense of obligation to others.

The elderly couple whose family begged them to leave but they had nowhere and no way to go. He’s wheelchair bound and on oxygen, and both are insulin dependent. They’re praying the shelter they found will be safe and that they’ll have enough medication to last thru the storm, as well as refrigeration to keep it usable. And there are many, many more elderly families in this situation.

The hundreds or perhaps thousands of dialysis patients whose very lives depend on this life saving procedure several times a week. They cannot safely evacuate either, unless there is a dialysis center nearby with generators to run the equipment; and transportation to get there and back. And what if the dialysis center near them loses power or is destroyed?

The hundreds of pregnant moms-to-be who are ready to give birth at any time who have no idea what they’ll do or where they’ll go. Where will they be when labor starts? And who will help them? Some are bedridden from complications and/or who will require a C-section for a safe delivery. They’re terrified, and wonder if they and their new baby will make it through the storm.

The special needs parents whose children require feeding tubes, breathing equipment and/or other life sustaining equipment. Where can they go? And would they have the emergency equipment that’s needed?

There are the young military families stationed in various bases throughout the state. Many cannot leave because their country needs them there to help the storm victims. Some of the families were sent out, but many remain behind, scared of what is going to happen next.

There are the first responders who, out of a sense of duty to their jobs and the ones they’ve sworn to protect, chose to stay while sending their loved ones away. They wonder if they’ll make it through, and if they’ll be able to keep up with enormous workload they know will be ahead of them.

There are the medical personnel who volunteered to stay when their hospitals and clinic and treatment centers decided to remain open to help the desperately ill and injured. A wrong decision, you say? Would you think that if you were still there and needed such medical attention?

There are so many more examples, stories, scenarios. I cannot begin to imagine. We have friends and acquaintances there as well, in many different areas of the state. Some have evacuated, some were not able to for various reasons. And yes, we worry about all of them.

I’ve heard some people saying how this is like such and such disaster movie they saw, and how miraculously everything was ok at the end. They somehow think this is the same thing. Really?

This isn’t a movie. This is real life. There are no retakes, no scripts to follow. No hero coming in at the last minute and miraculously sending the storm away. These are people like you and me, not actors getting paid to look scared or injured. Not studio sets and computer graphics to mimic a catastrophic storm. Real lives will be lost, and real families torn apart. Real homes and businesses will be destroyed.

Yes, you can say, “I’d do this” or “I’d do that” or “I’m not scared of the storm” or even, “I’m going to just have a hurricane party and watch it from my balcony!” Right.

Try actually being there. In the midst of it all. Your ideas may change. Suddenly the statues you’re so offended by have very little significance to you any more. Names of buildings and schools aren’t really that important any more. The people whose lifestyles you condemn and want nothing to do with may be the people who help save your life.

Try to imagine, just for a few minutes today, as you go about your normal day, how these people are feeling. Over 19 million people are under hurricane warnings as I write this. Hundreds of thousands have and still are evacuating with similar thoughts such as I wrote in the beginning of this piece.

If you are one of them, my heart and prayers go out to you because I cannot do anything else. Like many others who are watching this unfold, there’s a heart wrenching feeling of helplessness that is indescribable. Yes, we are relieved it’s not us.

But what if it were? That possibility is always there. And it frightens me.

Please, to all of you affected. Be safe. You hopefully have your loved ones with you, and together you can survive this. Yes, it will most likely be a devastating return, but at least you will be alive to try and rebuild.

May God bless and protect all of you over these next few days and weeks, and yes, months.

Our pastor mentioned it several times that morning. In the blink of an eye everything can change. Irreversibly change.

But we really don’t believe it. We don’t think about it.

Until it happens. And we wish so hard…pray so hard that we could take those last few seconds back. But we can’t.

And in the blink of an eye, someone’s world…or many someones’ worlds…has irreversibly changed.

That Sunday morning, we received word about a young man whose world…and his family and friends’ world…had irreversibly changed in the blink of an eye. He had just gotten off work and was riding his motorcycle home when a car suddenly pulled out in front of him. There was no way to stop, and nowhere or no time to swerve out of the way.

Now, some three weeks later he’s still in the hospital in ICU with head injuries (even though he was wearing a helmet), collapsed lungs, pneumonia, broken ribs, finally healing from bleeding from several internal organs, and two broken hips.

He was in an induced coma for over ten days and is finally starting to come around. He’s had multiple surgeries already, and facing many more, and most likely two hip replacements. He will be in the hospital for quite some time and then face a long rehab process. His parents are worried sick and his young daughter, well, you can only imagine.

In the blink of an eye, the course of so many lives changed. Not only this young man who is still fighting for his life, but his family and friends, as well as the driver of the car who pulled out in front of him. Was our young man in a “blind spot” that prevented the driver from seeing him? Was he/she not paying close attention? Did he/she not look carefully enough to see him? Perhaps He/she was momentarily distracted? We just don’t know, and may never know. But the driver has to live the rest of his/her life with the consequences of what happened as well.

Tonight, three weeks later, as I look around me I’m seeing far too many similar instances.

A massive stroke suddenly claimed the life of a friend’s mother in law. Tuesday morning she was fine and planning the rest of her summer; Tuesday afternoon she was fighting for her life. Wednesday evening she was gone.

Another serious stroke has left another friend of ours in ICU fighting for his life. Doctors finally stopped the massive brain bleed with surgery but after four days he is still not totally conscious, the plans he and his wife had made with their young children suddenly put on hold, perhaps permanently.

My sister-in-law suddenly lost her husband a few evenings ago. They had recently returned from a wonderful two week cruise and were talking about a visit to see us and meet our granddaughter.

One of my best friend’s 90+ year old father is back in the hospital fighting sepsis and potential pneumonia.

There are a few more stories as well, just in our circle of friends and family. But I’m not going there right now.

My point is simple. As I’ve said in other blogs, tomorrow is not promised. Ever. We do not know what is in store for us when we wake up each morning. Or when we get a phone call in the middle of the night.

We think we have time to rectify petty squabbles and disagreements; to apologize and start over. They can wait another day or two.

Until that day cannot come any more, because that person you wanted to make amends with is no longer here. In the blink of an eye they’re gone. Forever.

We put off making decisions for our life because we’re afraid, or scared. There’s always tomorrow.

And tomorrow never comes. Someone blinked, and the world changed forever.

We’re all equally guilty. In the time it takes to blink our eyes, lives are being totally and sometimes devastatingly changed.

Tomorrow isn’t promised. Live your life like it’s the last day you’ll have. Take the time to appreciate everyone you love, and tell them you love them. Show them you care.

Because you…or they…may not have tomorrow.