Friday, December 13, 2024

God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that always having enough of everything, you may share in every

good work.

2 Corinthians 9:8

 

Floods create a swirling cauldron of emotions, debris and damage. As someone who previously worked with flood survivors, I was well acquainted with the unique challenges survivors face of navigating flood waters and resettling their lives on a firm foundation. I listened to one woman’s story of being washed down a mountain with logs rushing past, hearing her children’s cries, and feeling powerless and helpless to intervene and make a difference.  I watched flood victims and their families not only struggle to survive but to thrive. But this year was different. The flood hit my daughter…and then it hit me.

 

My daughter hit a storm of unrelenting circumstances that shook her whole foundation. Waves of loss after loss and then feeling stripped of any resources needed to “rebuild” her life. This upheaval in her life coincided with me being asked to come out of retirement and once again help flood victims become flood survivors. Little did I know that I was also going to face a flood of circumstances that would deplete my energy and resources. First, a heart attack, and then a hip replacement and the subsequent recovery process. At times I felt I had “almost” nothing left to give.

 

Almost…that’s the point. God doesn’t call us to make miracles happen. He just asks us to offer what we have to Him – and He makes the miracles.

Corinthians 9:8 says “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that always having enough of everything, you may share in every good work.”  I discovered two meanings of the word abundance. One is having a large quantity of something. Another is simply having more than is needed. Most of my life, I’ve had a large abundance of energy – and God has blessed that offering. But even in this later period of my life (when I am semi-retired and very tired), I still experience abundance, and have more than is needed, and He blesses that offering as well.

 

As I stood with several women, looking at their homes that had been repaired by volunteers, and listening to them talk, you would have thought – in their eyes – I had walked on water in giving them aid. But, in reality, I had merely offered the miracle of His presence in the midst of their storm.

 

Faithful Father, you know our weaknesses and limitations. Yet, you graciously give us abundantly above all that we can ask or imagine, as we seek to extend your hand of blessing to others. May they see you, Jesus, walking toward them with an outstretched arm to rescue them in the midst of their storm.

 

Barb Daigle is a Case Manager with the Antietem Valley Recovery Group, a Deacon at the Bridge Fellowship Church in Shillington, and a member of the Berks County Mental Health Crisis Team.