Yesterday was a hard day to be online. So many heartbreaking memories of 9/11 posted and so much news of destruction headed for the Carolinas from the hurricane; everywhere you look there is so much despair. But God is always faithful, even when we can’t see. Even in the dark times, He is there.

We started our first day of school last week.  9th grade, 4th grade, and 2nd.  Highschool!  My little boy with the golden curls is a dark haired big guy taller than me with shoes the same size as his dad’s is starting HIGHSCHOOL. Ugh. That happened so quickly!  Our first week went well, it was a nice short week thanks to Labor Day.  But we’re three days into week two, and as most homeschoolers know, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Getting back into any routine after an extended break is difficult, and then we’re bumping up the expectations at the high school level a bit, so naturally, we’ve run into a little bit of feet-dragging.

“No, you can’t quit school at age 13.”

“No, dumping all your astronomy books from your room into the hallway won’t change my mind about making you do school.”

“No, we aren’t going to be quitting that book already, we’ve only done the first few pages.”

“If you’d put that calculator in the drawer when you’re done, you wouldn’t have to look for it.” (Said three days in a row now.)

Such is life the first few weeks of class until we get settled, get used to our new curriculum programs, and back into the school-groove.  Life goes on.

Can you imagine what it’d be like to have such a routine disrupted by something momentous?  I mean, we’ve done the day-to-day stuff, illnesses, things coming up requiring a sudden shift in schedule, new babies… they tend to put a hole in the school year, but that one’s pretty worthwhile.   But what about a hurricane?  What about a 9/11?   Thinking about that gives one a whole new perspective, doesn’t it?

I remember once as a kid, I was practicing my accordion (yes, really!) one late afternoon when I noticed a strange orange light coming in through the windows.  Thinking it was some sort of weird sunset, I put the instrument down, (gladly, I was at the stage that any excuse to get out of practice was a welcome one!) ran out to the front porch only to see the entire mountain in front of our house ablaze with a brush fire.  This was a fairly frequent occurrence in summertime in southern California, and even though it was close we were in no real danger.  It was, however, a great excuse to sit out on the porch and watch all the action.  Helicopters dropping red fire retardant, fire engines and various rescue vehicles going back and forth down our street on the way to the road leading up the hill to the fire… what great fun!

Sometimes I think it’s easy for us to look at those incidents that crop up that we hear about, whether on the news or online… those distant events…  It’s so easy to forget sometimes that there are real lives involved.  Someone’s daily routine over there is being severely disrupted in an awful way when they were least expecting it.

I’ve often heard people say, “Well, all we can do it pray!”  Or, “I can’t donate (money or time, etc.), all I can do is pray.”  It shouldn’t be JUST prayer… prayer needs to be our FIRST line of defense against disaster.   It’s not a small thing, it’s the BIGGEST and BEST thing we can do.

Let’s not forget to pray for those this week who are remembering loved ones lost on that horrible day 17 years ago in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.  And let’s pray for those TODAY who are dealing with recording breaking rainfall from Hurricane Florence.  God has not left us defenseless against attacks of discouragement and doubt during such times. He has provided spiritual armor for these battles if we only remember to look to Him.