Of course, we knew she was fine because we’d already gotten three e-mails from her awesome mission president. (For one of them, he had to wait until a large tree was removed from his driveway so he could drive to a place with power to send the email! Kudos to him for the effort to keep us, and all his missionaries' parents, informed.) And, because of his notes, we knew that the missionaries were prepared with extra days’ food, water, batteries, and so on. And the missionaries had been instructed about what to do and how to behave.
We are grateful that our daughter is safe. We’re also grateful for a mission president and an organization that plan carefully for such emergencies, and were thoughtful enough to keep us posted.
We have another daughter and two nieces who were also in the path of the storm, all safe and sound.
My brother remarked a number of years ago after a huge snowfall in Chicago that one benefit of these large weather events is that we’re reminded that we are not in control of everything we see. There are things bigger than us, and there’s value in learning to rely on the Lord’s help when we simply cannot help ourselves.
Our family lived in Taiwan for 2-1/2 years and we had three or four typhoons (including the week we moved back home) while we were there. The first one was very frightening for us because we’d never been through it. The subsequent ones were curiosities, but not so completely scary. Still, we learned to be prepared at home, and to stay put until it was safe to leave.
Those were two key principles: being prepared and being in a place of safety in the storm. There are, of course, gospel parallels. As we live providently and keep commandments, we can be prepared not only for temporal storms, but spiritual ones, as well. And knowing the place of safety – whether our home, at the sacrament table or in the temple – will help to protect us in spiritual storms, as well.
Continued prayers for those who are rebuilding and cleaning up after the storm.
And if you'd add action to your prayers, consider a donation to the Red Cross -- click here for more details.
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BTW, follow this link to Everyday Mormon Writer to vote for your favorite story from their Four Centuries of Mormon Stories contest.
