Do you ever have trouble controlling your thoughts? I guess that is a dumb question if there ever was one. At least it is for me. I really do well sometimes, but there are times when I fail miserably. I don’t have to tell you that those are the times I get my eyes off of Christ. I lose sight of all He has done for me. I forget to be thankful!
Sometimes I start trying to tell God how to run things. If that isn’t the height of pride, I don’t know what is. I found myself during Hurricane Florence having a conversation with God. I talked to Him quite a bit about this last hurricane. I know hurricanes have a purpose, but I wanted to tell Him where the hurricane should go. You see, I have a new respect for hurricanes since Hurricane Matthew. I never worried about the weather, and I slept like a baby through previous hurricanes.
I honestly didn’t fear the storm as much as I did the aftermath. Well, Hurricane Florence changed that. When she seemed to grow and grow, it actually put some fear into my heart. It is good to be concerned, but fear is notof the Lord. I prayed it would go out to sea, but if I was honest with myself, I thought, “We’ve had our turn, Lord. Can’t she go somewhere else?” How selfish is that? In my defense, I did not want anyone hurt.
As the storm came closer and all the predictions began to occur, we began to prepare for the worst. The path kept changing. The meteorologists did the best they could, but they have the job of predicting the unpredictable. They catch a lot of flak sometimes, but they honestly do a very good job. I am thankfulfor the job they do! We must remember that in times past, there was no warning. We would not have had time to buy supplies, and prepare our homes and businesses. Because of their work, many lives and homes were saved.
We knew the storm was predicted to be a category 4, and it was supposed to stall over land. It was not only a strong storm, but it was huge. Thankfully, Hurricane Florence got some wind knocked out of her sails. Right before our eyes, the storm was reduced to a category 2 before it hit land. I believe God just squeezed some of the wind out of her sails. I know the devastation was great, but think of what it would have been if she had hit at a level 4. As I thought of the many lives that were saved because of that one miracle, I was so thankful!
I thought maybe we will be spared. You see, it doesn’t take long for me to start thinking of myself. I tried to convince myself that I was thinking of others, too. I just couldn’t stop thinking, “Not again.” We had prepared as much as possible for flooding, but we were hoping it would not happen this time. We had put everything up high at the academy. We had learned from the last one. We worked for a week putting things up and moving them to higher ground. We let out early from school the day before so we could raise everything off the ground. We did everything we knew possible to prevent the devastation of Matthew. Unfortunately, we could not put the transmitters on higher ground so there was no way to prepare for the flooding at the station sites. We did have the generators checked out ahead of time, but one of them failed anyway. So we prepared as we could in all facets of the ministry. At our house, we are fortunate. Our home is on a hill, so we did not have to worry about any flooding. We did batten down the hatches and made sure we had the needed supplies. Then the hard part came… waiting!
As the storm hit and the winds blew, I was thankful. It didn’t seem to be such a bad storm. This will be OK. However, it seemed to rain forever. Florence was like an unwelcome house guest, she just lingered. The more it rained, the more concerned I got. Isn’t it amazing how quickly we forget about being thankfuland move on to a new problem?
We kept watching the river water gauge. As far as the academy was concerned, the Neuse River is the one we watch. We knew that the Neuse River had gotten to 29.74 feet after Matthew, so we knew how much flooding we experienced from that level. We also knew that the Neuse had gotten to 24.9 a few months after Matthew and the academy was spared. So we were watching carefully! We waited at home anxiously as the river was rising.
The only problem we had at home was we lost electricity for a few days. We had plenty of food and water. The food wasn’t my first choice, but I never was hungry. As soon as I watched the news, I realized how much flooding had occurred. There were so many hurting people. Wilmington had been slammed. This was just the flooding from the rain; the rivers had not even flooded yet! I became thankfulfor my small problems, and ashamed for worrying. I was sitting in my comfortable home watching the news, while so many were displaced.
We finally got into the academy. When we opened the doors and all I saw was wet carpet, I was relieved. We began to look around and knew the water had gotten in the building, we just didn’t know how much. There were water lines in some places, but we didn’tknow if it was from seepage or if the water had risen that high. We had high hopes that we could be in the academy in a few days. I was so thankful!
Well, the building inspector came and said we had to cut out the walls, spray bleach, and go through the whole process again. Mind you, we didn’t have to do nearly as much, but I knew that meant we weren’t coming to school in a few days and that also meant more expense. It meant we would need to procure a temporary site and be in two places again. Was I thankful? You would think so, but I knew it would be a lot of extra work, and I didn’t want to do it. We also had three stations off the air, and we needed to take care of the people who were unable to get our signal. We needed to take care of our people. I just didn’t want to do this again! You notice I keep using the word I and we.
Well, praise the Lord! We only had to be at a temporary site for two weeks, and we were only out of our building for about a month. The three stations are back on the air, and we are back in the business of ministering to all of our people.
So you see, I have trouble controlling my thoughts. One minute I was thankful, the next I was fretful. Oh, I don’t like that word. Me, fretful! What else would you call it? That is not normally my nature. I was worried about the future instead of leaving things in God’s hands. I put everything in His hands, and then I took them out. I was like a Yo Yo. Up and down-up and down. Of course, my husband was the only one who saw this. I did a pretty good job of hiding it from others. So why do I share it with you now? I hope you can learn from my mistake! The only time I worried was when I forgot to be thankful!
How to win over worry? Take the advice our Lord gives in I Thessalonians 5:18. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you! This verse doesn’t teach that you are thankful you have cancer or your home is flooded. It teaches that we are to be thankful in all circumstances. Our Heavenly Father sent His Son that we could have a home in heaven someday. If we are saved, His Spirit lives inside us, we have a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, and He promises to be with us in every situation.
In all of the trials that come our way, we must look for what we can learn from them. We must allow ourselves to grow from them. If we fail to be thankful, we will not learn or grow.
How do we control our thoughts? Being thankfulis a great place to start!
Mrs. Worthington has five children and eleven grandchildren. She serves as Principal of Pathway Christian Academy in Goldsboro.