What I Learned From Hurricane Matthew

Hello there dear friends and gentle readers. I apologize yet again for my absence. 2016 has been a bitch, but I am going to address that in another post. I'm here to talk about the hurricane.

Hurricane Matthew, perhaps you've heard about him? He hit the South Eastern Coast last weekend and left a swath of destruction in his wake. St. Augustine, FL and Fayetteville, NC were two of the hardest hit areas. While St. Augustine seems to be making a decent recovery, Fayetteville is having a harder time of it. Savannah, GA was also hit pretty hard. 

This used to be A1A. (source)

I have lived in or near all of these places at different points in my life and as such have friends and family in all of them. My mom, sister, and uncle came out of the storm no worse for the wear so that's good. Sadly, an old friend of mine in St. Augustine lost her business in the flooding. As far as I know none of my Fayetteville friends have been personally affected by the flooding there, so that's great news. On the other hand, a couple of my Savannah friends wound up here in Augusta with nowhere to stay so I put them up for the entirety of their evacuation. Luckily, when they got home all was well with their apartment. No damage, nothing was destroyed. All is well and I did a good turn.

So why don't I feel like I've done enough? I wish that I could do more to help. I wish that I could send money to my friend's GoFundMe to help rebuild her business. I wish that I could go to St. Augustine to help with the clean-up. I wish that I could go to Fayetteville to help with the clean-up. I wish that I could be there to help the people I care about. But all I can do is sit here and post what little information I have - which handy-ways and supermarkets are open and have supplies - on Facebook for people who need that information. 

I feel really helpless and it occurs to me in my helplessness that this is why people pray. When they have nothing to give, the only thing they can give is their prayers and it makes them feel like they are doing something to help. The thing is, there's always some small thing that you can do to accompany your prayer. Prayers are fine and well and good, but as Pat Robertson of the 700 Club tells us, they work better when a monetary contribution is attached. I know I don't have a monetary contribution to attach to my prayers, but I do have an extra bed to share with weary evacuees and I have information to share with people who might need it. And that's something. I'm doing something. 

What are you doing, I wonder? Just a thought. 

Incidentally, if you are feeling generous and you want to donate to my friend's GoFundMe to restore her business, here's the link: SaveTheFishTank She and her husband are really great people and they have 3 little kids, the youngest of whom was just born a few months ago. Any help is greatly appreciated!