The ducks are swimming in the street

I had a chance to go by one of our downtown park areas on Monday afternoon. It's normally this pretty little lake with a gazebo, a walking path around it, and some charming little cottages that house some small, local businesses. Unfortunately, that's not quite how it looks now.

When I drove by, I first noticed that the water was inches away from running into a major downtown street. I pulled off the road to get a better look, and was amazed. You can hardly even see the park benches peeking out of the water.

I really did have to laugh, though, when I saw the ducks swimming in the water that had flooded a side street. What an excellent example of how to deal with the difficult twists and turns that sometimes pop up in life. The ducks weren't complaining that their home had changed, or that things weren't how the ducks thought they should be. No sirree, they just swam around to see what was different and to joyfully explore their changed circumstances. Matthew 6:26 came to mind: Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Fay's all gone

Well, we got a ton of much-needed rain, but she's moved on now. In my neighborhood, it wasn't all that big a deal. The power flickered a few times, but never even went out, which is quite unusual for my area. (I'm starting to think that them clearing out all those trees in the woods behind my house in order to build new houses might have removed whatever used to cause our electrical problems every time the wind would blow.) There are a few branches down here and there, but nothing of much notice. It was just a heavy rain storm with a little extra wind. We had fun watching the rain during the spurts of torrential pours.

I have seen and heard of quite a bit of flooding in other areas of town, however. It took my boss almost 2 hours to get to work today instead of the usual 30 minutes because he kept having to take detours around flooded areas and downed trees. So I guess I should be thankful! The paper reported an electrican was killed while trying to restore power to other homes, which was sad. But everything's otherwise back to normal again now. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!