Ten Years- Katrina Matters

Ten years ago I was a freshman in high school.

I was afraid of high school and who I would become. I wanted to be the popular girl in the movies and a jock and all the right things. But I didn't have a minute to find out who I was.

Katrina interrupted our first semester and whether it was two weeks or two months I don't remember. All I remember was driving for 8 hours what usually took my family 45 minutes to my grandmother's house, having to pee like nobody's business and wondering what was going to happen.

We never left for a storm. We always stayed. This was big. Really big.

We lost power for a little over a week and only could hear what was happening in our home town by word of mouth and hospital TV if the news was on, which it always was (we went to the hospital for AC occasionally).

I could sit here and type out how traumatic returning to a devastated city was. I could tell you how my family lost their home (not my home, but my aunt, cousnins, etc) and everything they held dear. I can tell you how my mother's grandmother's house was ON TENNESSEE ST and was wiped clean off the foundation when the levee broke.

BUT those details are only part of my story. All of those details.  Every emotion that was stirred in me broke through my own levee. For the first time in my life I began to take God seriously.

Instead of thinking I'd return to school as the popular girl or the one that played every sport or the straight A student, I'd be the one that knew her faith.

Now, this is such a huge part of my testimony because this didn't happen until a year later.

But I'm sick and tired of everyone wanting "to get over the Katrina 10 year stuff" because it is IMPORTANT. Stuff happened. People died and LIVED and moved and moved on.

This is part of our story. Katrina is part of my story. Jesus used this storm and devastation to create a new city, a new home for many, and a (excuse the extreme play on words) NEW Orleans.

Don't discount what He did in this city. Just listen to the news cast. His name is all over them. The Lord saved people and brought people together to save thousands. And while we still mourn for those lost, we celebrate their lives in true New Orleans fashion: with second lines and hope.

Somehow, through all her winds and rains, hope still shown through Katrina's dark clouds.

10 years has done so much.

Levees and Clouds- Learning About the Journey

I just got home from a laid back kind of Saturday. I’m not entirely used to Saturdays yet and don’t always know how to spend them, but today after having open-house at the daycare and meeting my kids, spending some time with my class-team (other teachers in my class), I’m feeling more confident about where God has me right now. I mean I’ve had lots of anxiety about working with the people in my class— wondering if we’ll get along and if we can move past differences and learn to communicate— but God keeps shooting me with these little peace arrows. I swear it’s like Cupid’s arrows but with peace, and just enough to make the breaths come easy and deep.

On my way home from my day out seeing friends and just walking around on a surprisingly “cool” New Orleans' day, I stopped on the levee to check out the Mississippi River. It’s still pretty high right now and there’s something about the river I always find soothing. I could seriously sit there for hours and just watch the water churn as the barges are led by tugboats down towards their ports.

As I was walking up the levee I looked up and saw this picture perfect scene! Clouds just above the manicured levee (doesn’t happen often, let’s be honest) and the sun in a comfortable position that wasn’t too high or low; you didn’t have to shade your eyes as you walked up the levee and you didn’t feel like you were baking either. So, what did I do as a young woman in the twenty-first century? I took out my phone and took a picture. Then I took my sunglasses off and used then as a filter and took another picture because Instagram’s filters aren’t cool enough for me.

I continued to walk up the levee and when I reached the top I was welcomed by a muddy smell. The river was high but not remarkably. I was actually a little disappointed. The view wasn’t horrible, except for the huge industrial plant I could see directly across from where I was.

Despite the smell and awkward view, I decided to stay because it wasn’t terribly hot. I picked a spot in what I always called "scaredy cat grass" and sat. I was suddenly targeted by gnats and other little bugs I couldn’t see and because The Muddy Mississippi isn’t so pretty up close in person, splashing along its banks, I gave up sitting after about five minutes and headed back to the car. It simply wasn’t worth it.

Here’s the thing, though, when I got in my car I decided to look at the picture from when I walked up the levee. It was beautiful. Something you might see on a calendar or a post card. Well, maybe I’m biased but I liked it. I also really like clouds and levees…haha.

And of course Jesus had something to say about the picture that I was so excited about.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “It’s not always about the destination; it’s about the journey.” Well, yea. I feel like this post should end there, but the Lord went on!

I’m SUCH a destination person. Like, God could tell me I’m meant to do “x” or I’m called to “y” and I’ll be like, “Cool, so I’ma just chill here till something happens to make me magically appear at ‘x’ or get to ‘y’.” I’m not kidding right now. I don’t like to struggle and will avoid it at all cost, but right now I am struggling. I'm practically driving that Struggle Bus! Hope is difficult to come by and joy is sometimes-- often-- fleeting right now. I'm not "living the dream" right now, and that's where I want to get to and it's a hard road. 

But today the Lord made it so clear to me that you HAVE to look up during your journey. You HAVE to see what’s around you. You HAVE to take note, notice, explore, experience...because if not you’re just going to be staring at the ugly arrow on the ugly asphalt out of breath because you don’t work out like you should as you walk up this levee instead of noticing the grass has been cut for the first time in eighteen months and the clouds are perfect and the sky is blue and beautiful and the sun is bright but lovely and you are happy and hopeful and somehow know, really and truly KNOW deep within your soul that everything will be okay; that no matter where you are in life—becoming a teenager, quarter-life crisis, learning marriage, parenthood, non-parenthood, mid-life crisis, etc—God loves you and you are Chosen with a capital C even if you don’t entirely get what that means but you know that you are Loved with a capital L and you somehow know exactly what that means.

Look up and experience the struggle, because, my dear ones, the struggle is part of the story, and there is hope in it. Pause and breathe. Life is made up of desperate, suffering people that need each other and, more so, Jesus. We are all struggling but if some of us just would look up and pause for a moment and notice the beauty on occasion, maybe we could help each other out.

Today my destination turned out to matter very little. In fact, before this revelation I would have said it was a bust. But now, now I say it was amazing and just what I needed, which the Lord knew. He’s known it for so long, and today my stubborn self said okay and went with it.

Keep on keeping on.

--Maggie Mae