Preparing for the Blow

I just got back from K-Mart. That is very exciting, because K-Mart has bottled water. Every store in Marion County is dry, or so I thought. I went into K-Mart to buy a bread pan, and I saw big stacks of purified water in the aisles.

God bless K-Mart.

I took four cases. That’s a lot for two people, right? Yes. But it looks like there will be…let me count…twelve people in my house when the storm goes by.

My friend Amanda lives in a flimsy structure, and she has three young boys. My friend Alonzo has to work during the storm, and he doesn’t want his wife and five kids to be alone in their house in Orlando. My house (the lower story, at least) is made of concrete, so all these people will be spending the night.

There is nearly no furniture on the second story of the house. I had this nutty idea that after a week or so of settling in, I would be able to start looking for beds and so on. Then my dad had to be hospitalized, we had big problems with Atlas Van Lines, and a hurricane reared up and threatened our properties in both Dade and Marion Counties. Also, the couch I ordered arrived with forklift holes and had to be sent back. Needless to say, I am not accomplishing much RE furniture.

I suppose my friends are bringing sleeping bags and air mattresses. If not, welcome to the floor. We have a few molded lawn chairs and some rockers we are bringing in off the porches, but this house is not what you would call furnished.

I’m concerned about losing electricity. I hate life without air conditioning, and because our water comes from a well with a private pump, I would experience darkness, heat, room temperature food, and the joy of using buckets to flush the toilets. I had a stroke of very good news today. One of our neighbors works for the electric company. I am told this speeds up repairs to this neighborhood. Viva corruption, I guess.

I don’t know what to do about vehicles. I have a lot of garage space, but it’s full. I have two tractors. I’m thinking I should put one in the goat shed (don’t ask) and one in the middle of a pasture. I don’t think a hurricane will hurt a farm tractor. One of my friends just got an SUV, and the other depends on a Honda Pilot to feed her kids. I would feel funny worrying about a tractor when expensive vehicles are at risk.

My truck has an insurance policy with a $50 damage deductible. I got that after some kid shot the rear windshield out with a slingshot. I could put the truck outside and hope a huge tree hits it. New truck for $50. I don’t think the winds here will be bad enough to damage it, though, especially if it’s in the middle of a pasture. Hard to say.

I feel much better about the storm’s path, at least on my own account. They now believe it will hit pretty far west of Miami. If the predictions are right, Miami will be close to the boundary between tropical storm and hurricane. If that happens, the things that belong to me and my dad will only get winds of, say, 75 mph. That’s not good, but it beats 170, which is about what we got from Andrew.

I’m concerned about my friend Leah, who has a rental house in the keys. As Irma’s path moves west, it puts her house in more danger. On the plus side, she’s on the ocean side, and the storm surge will come from the Florida Bay side. Also, her house is on concrete stilts.

I have been fasting and praying for both of us, as well as Amanda and Alonzo. It would be nice if everyone’s property was spared.

There has been a lot of fasting this week. Leah, Amanda, and my friend Travis have all joined in. Yesterday something really crazy happened. My dad said he would fast if it would help. I did not know what to make of that. He thinks Christianity is superstition. I was stunned. I encouraged him to join us, and he fasted part of the day. We were only fasting until 6 p.m., and he didn’t know about it until after breakfast. Still! How about that God of ours?

I keep asking God to help me bring him as much pleasure as possible, and to help me avoid bringing him displeasure. The Bible clearly says our purpose is to give God pleasure; it says his pleasure is the reason he created us. Might as well be direct when I pray. Might as well confront the issue that is most fundamental to God.

This has been a very tough couple of weeks. I will not lie. We had a lot of problems we did not expect, and now Irma is threatening to obliterate a lot of our net worth. I have slept very badly. I have a lot of supernatural tools for reducing stress, but I don’t use them as much as I should, so I pay the price. Beginning night before last, I started feeling a lot more peace. Today I feel it very strongly. I hope God sees fit to continue it. If the power goes off and we end up living out of buckets in a roasting-hot house, life could be very unpleasant for one or more weeks. I don’t know what I would do. We might have to move somewhere.

In any case, God has been very kind, shifting this storm away from a city that greatly deserves it. If Irma misses our stuff, I will not waste the opportunity to prepare and strategize better.

I still have to bake bread, because buying it is not an option today. I have to take my dad to get food. I have to clean this place up. I need to check the tractor. Lots to do.

Please keep praying for us. If God doesn’t want to send the storm north into the open ocean, maybe he’ll be willing to run it through the empty Everglades, and out into the Gulf. After that, it could be driven into a sparsely populated area in Central America.

Jennifer Lawrence may have helped us with this storm. Supposedly, she suggested Irma was Mother Nature’s punishment for the election of President Trump. God put Trump in the White House to help his people and to hinder the children of the enemy for a time, so I don’t think God wants godless liberals to get away with mocking the people who elected him. They seem to love it when disasters hit conservative areas. I hope God will stand up for us.

Houston is not a conservative town. It’s minority-heavy, so many people vote for the sugar daddy party. Something to think about.

Please keep praying for us. I could use a week without a crisis.