It has truly been an eventful three days around our house and community. As we left church on Sunday night at our main campus, we noticed that the wind was pretty extreme for an Ohio evening. People were being carried across the parking lot by the strong winds…not really, but it sounds dangerous. As I later discovered, Ohio was experiencing the remnants of Hurricane Ike which had made landfall in the United States a few days earlier. I’ve got to be honest – I didn’t think too much of the high winds, after all I have survived Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Opal. I consider myself a part-time hurricane expert. Again…not really. Our family arrived home and we were sitting in the room located in the rear of our house. Without warning this loud cracking sound caused me to immediately look out the back sliding glass door only to see a massive seventy foot tree crash to the ground. Luckily the tree did not damage our home. My kids became absolutely petrified that another tree was going to crash into the house, but thankfully no other trees fell. About thirty minutes following the tree incident, our power went out. We’ve lived in this particular home for over nine years and the power has never been out for more than an hour or so; however, we were not so lucky this time. Electricity was not restored until Tuesday night and I have to admit that being without power was pretty tough…even frustrating. After feeling a little angry about the power outage, I met a man on Monday morning who was doing some work for the cable company around our house. Looking at the huge tree which had fallen in our backyard he said something like this, “Just think of it this way…your house is safe, your family is safe, and you have a lot to be thankful for.” He was right. There are many things I could complain about, but I need to learn to be satisfied with what I already have.

It has truly been an eventful three days around our house and community. As we left church on Sunday night at our main campus, we noticed that the wind was pretty extreme for an Ohio evening. People were being carried across the parking lot by the strong winds…not really, but it sounds dangerous. As I later discovered, Ohio was experiencing the remnants of Hurricane Ike which had made landfall in the United States a few days earlier. I’ve got to be honest – I didn’t think too much of the high winds, after all I have survived Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Opal. I consider myself a part-time hurricane expert. Again…not really. Our family arrived home and we were sitting in the room located in the rear of our house. Without warning this loud cracking sound caused me to immediately look out the back sliding glass door only to see a massive seventy foot tree crash to the ground. Luckily the tree did not damage our home. My kids became absolutely petrified that another tree was going to crash into the house, but thankfully no other trees fell. About thirty minutes following the tree incident, our power went out. We’ve lived in this particular home for over nine years and the power has never been out for more than an hour or so; however, we were not so lucky this time.

Electricity was not restored until Tuesday night and I have to admit that being without power was pretty tough…even frustrating. After feeling a little angry about the power outage, I met a man on Monday morning who was doing some work for the cable company around our house. Looking at the huge tree which had fallen in our backyard he said something like this, “Just think of it this way…your house is safe, your family is safe, and you have a lot to be thankful for.” He was right. There are many things I could complain about, but I need to learn to be satisfied with what I already have.