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Last weekend Nashville, TN was hit with what many are calling a 1,000 year flood. While not all of Nashville was flooded (unlike New Orleans with Katrina), many large neighborhoods and business districts were flooded. I sat in the comfort of my living room (well away from flood concerns) watching the drama unfold. I saw bridges washed away, parking lots turned into raging rivers, and a building float down the interstate and then crumble upon impact with cars and semi-trucks. I stood in church with my pastors Sunday morning and within minutes literally watched a car disappear into the rising flood waters. Every local station covered the flood as any disaster I have ever seen on television. Live shots, breaking news, death, destruction…and there in the middle of it all, hope. Strangers pulling strangers off of rooftops, tree limbs, car roofs…and then the rain ended. For 48 hours Nashville’s most famous landmarks were inundated with water…The Grand Ole Opry and Opryland Hotel, LP Field and the Bridgestone Arena, Wildhorse Saloon…neighborhoods in Bordeaux, Bellevue, Antioch, and West Nashville with water from several inches to several feet simply destroying everything and anything in its path.

In the midst of the destruction, the chaos, and the fears I wondered how God could allow something like this to happen. I wondered how He would make good out of so much bad. And then the waters receded and Nashville became a true community. Thousands of volunteers, some with churches, some with Hands on Nashville, some just on their own flooded these communities with hope, with manpower, and with the love of Christ.

I stood in awe as I walked through the River Plantation community in Bellevue one week after the rain started. In every direction, for as long as the neighborhood stretched were people helping people. Men and women with gloves and hammers tearing out drywall, removing carpet, hardwood flooring and furniture. Men and women demoing houses, gutting first floors, basements, bathrooms. Everything the water touched was destroyed. The sights, sounds, and smells were overwhelming. The emotions were evident but for the most part controlled. Yet, on every face you could sense the despair, you could see in the eyes of the widow who lost everything “how will I survive this?” You saw on the face of the single mom the gratitude for the strangers that were literally throwing the remains of her life in trash bags “how do I keep going?” I felt lost in the midst of this pain. All I could do was keep working, was keep moving, doing anything I was asked, not because I wanted to be thanked, recognized, or noticed. I kept going because I knew that if the workers stopped then those devastated would not be able to keep going.

John 16:33

³³“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

That was the verse we studied in church this morning. I could not believe the wonder of God when after going through John with our church for almost 2 years that on this Sunday, after the flood, when for so many, all hope seemed lost, that the Father would remind us that the victory is His. I praise God for the gift of sore muscles, an aching back, and tired hands. I thank Him for showing me two small stories that are but a pin drop in what happened to our city. I praise Him for the healer that He is. He has overcome this destruction, He has overcome the sin that has caused so much pain in our world. He has overcome our iniquities and shortcomings so that in Him we may have eternal piece after this life is over. I take heart in my Jesus today!

Pray for our city, for Bellevue, Antioch, Bordeaux, Riverfront, West Nashville, Clarksville, Memphis, Dickson, Jackson … pray for the widow and the single mother … pray for healing and restoration … most importantly pray as was said this morning, that their lives will be restored on a better foundation, that we will all build our lives on the rock that is Christ Jesus and not on the things of this world that can be so quickly washed away.

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