Assessing the Damage

First published in The Daily Sentinel, Friday, Sept. 19, 2008


Hurricane Ike slammed into the Texas Gulf Coast last weekend, unleashing ferocious winds, an 11-foot storm surge onto the beach, and pounding rain. I spent my first year after college in that part of Texas. My wife and I lived in Brazoria County, right next to Galveston along the coast south of Houston.

Watching the news reports, I saw pictures of places and buildings that I recognized. Unlike most hurricane reports, these affected me personally. I KNEW what those places were supposed to look like – and instead they looked like a war zone.

I also have family in the greater Houston area. I called last Friday before the storm hit to find out what they planned to do. My aunt said they were going to ride out the storm rather than evacuate. They lived far enough inland from both the Gulf coast and Galveston Bay that they didn’t think the surge would do anything to them. They were more concerned with the wind and rain, but they’d done all they could to secure their property. The rest they had to leave in God’s hands.

My grandmother is also down there. Up until a couple of months ago, she was living with my aunt. But she’d fallen and broken her hip, so she had been moved to a rehabilitation center until she was able to move around again on her own. The rehab center was also not evacuating. They’d secured their facilities and done all they could to make the patients and residents comfortable in an obviously uncomfortable situation.

Those of us more than 1000 miles away from Houston did little to prepare for the storm. Why should we? We aren’t in the path of the hurricane – right? Well, Ike certainly had more in it than we expected!

As Ike continued up from Texas, through Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and even Ohio – we all got a close-up and personal experience of what a hurricane can do. My cousin in Louisville is without power. My brother-in-law in Dayton just got his power back yesterday. Columbus is still trying to recover. The Columbus Dispatch reported six confirmed deaths from the storm, millions without electricity, and many even without running water. They have a helpful section on their website: “Deal With the Aftermath.” But I wonder how those without power can access the internet to learn what to do?

We have become so completely dependent on basic services that we take them for granted – until suddenly they aren’t there. We make all kinds of plans for how to spend our time – until emergencies rip those plans to shreds. We have priorities for our money – until we have to spend it on survival rather than pleasure.

Jesus talks about misplaced priorities and false assumptions in the “parable of the rich fool.” Found in Luke 12:13-21, Jesus describes a landowner whose fields produced an abundant crop – so much abundance that it wouldn’t all fit into his barns. He had a problem, but he thought he had the right solution when he said to himself: “This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’”

Isn’t that what we do? We think we can take life easy – except when we can’t. And while we think we can take it easy, we become increasingly oblivious to those around us who are struggling to survive. Assessing the damage from Hurricane Ike shouldn’t be limited to what the storm did to our trees, our property, our basic infrastructure. We should also assess the damage we have done to our souls BEFORE the storm. Have we become like the rich fool, content to eat, drink, and be merry?

Here’s what God said to the landowner: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

My aunt and her family came through the storm with little damage. They even had electricity restored before the weekend was over. My grandmother didn’t fare so well. Last Sunday evening, she was incoherent. The initial diagnosis was that she’d suffered a stroke. Because of Ike, the hospital had no neurologists who could examine her. For the past several days, no one could see her in the hospital because it was on emergency power only and therefore operating in “lock-down” mode.

I don’t know whether or not God is about to bring my grandmother home, but I do know that she is ready if this is her time. She has spent her life assessing the damage, asking God to forgive her participation in destructiveness and self-centeredness, then working to bring others into a state of readiness to meet God, too.

For me, assessing the damage from Ike is intensely personal. But no matter how much – or how little – Ike affected you, take time to assess the damage. Especially to your soul. Work to live differently post-Ike than you did pre-Ike. Don’t make the mistake of the rich landowner. Live for God and your neighbor rather than just for yourself.