How the Disasters Affected Me

Last September, I was invited by my local church leaders to attend a preparedness workshop offered by the city of San Antonio, TX. At this meeting I learned about the plans the city has to prepare for disasters. I learned about different recent disasters and how to get notifications during upcoming disasters. I also signed up to volunteer with the Red Cross. At the time, my local church leaders were also encouraging us to be more active in our communities.

Damage to a home in Port Aransas, TX after Hurricane Harvey

I trace my involvement with the Red Cross to these events but in addition, I must mention that I attribute divine intervention to my choice to volunteer at this time since I have so many young children at home. In December or January, I began to wonder what kind of disaster God was planning to send on my area. Not knowing the answer, I held that thought.

In August, we had three hurricanes hit the United States one after the other. In addition, Mexico experienced two earthquakes greater than 6.5 magnitude on the richter scale. Then we had a series of fires in California that burned many acres and displaced 100,000 people. While each disaster was regional, the effect was far reaching. Every disaster affected the local population as well as the family and friends who live elsewhere. In a sense, they have affected all of us. As one friend posted on Facebook before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, “I don’t know if I have the emotional energy to handle another hurricane.”

How to Accept God’s Grace

The notion common to most Christians is that you accept God’s grace by declaring your belief in Him. This comes from Romans 10:9 which says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (KJV)

My understanding of grace is that it is applied by a loving God universally to his children in the form of a full restitution of the physical body after death, a full restitution of broken hearts and (conditional upon repentance) a full restitution of sin.

I believe that in order to accept God’s grace I have to do more than say “I do” but I have to “do what I say.”

What you send out will come back to you

Divine Mentoring

“I remember once a seven- or eight-year-old son of ours jumping on his bed hard enough that I thought it might break. I felt a flash of frustration, and I moved quickly to set my house in order. I grabbed my son by his little shoulders and lifted him up to where our eyes met.

“The Spirit put words into my mind. It seemed a quiet voice, but it pierced to my heart: “You are holding a great person.” I gently set him back on the bed and apologized.

“Now he has become the great man the Holy Ghost let me see 40 years ago. I am eternally grateful that the Lord rescued me from my unkind feelings by sending the Holy Ghost to let me see a child of God as He saw him.” (Source: Eyring, “My Peace I Leave with You.”)

In this story, the Holy Ghost mentored a father in the very moment when he was about to discipline his child, showing him the great worth of the child in God’s eyes. The Holy Ghost is the vehicle by which God offers us divine mentoring in our life.