I’m sincerely hoping I don’t end up with a “Hurricane Gustav” category like my Hurricane Katrina category. That said, I’m surprisingly calm about it. I live in Jefferson Parish, which is adjacent to Orleans. New Orleans is about ten minutes away. The West Bank of Jefferson parish, which is expected to be hit very hard, is where my mother lives. She’s thinks we’re quite nutty for believing as we do, and the fact that we’re calm now unnerves her a little bit, I believe. She’s with us now, so we can evacuate later today. I’m praying after this is all over she’ll understand us a little better and maybe even join us.

We were fortunate enough to have an abbreviated church service yesterday – still held on Saturdays because our church was destroyed by Katrina, although the new one is nearly completed. Among the songs we sang were Blessed Be The Name, How Good It Is, and I Have A Shelter.  (lyrics below the fold)  Blessed Be The Name was especially poignant, since we sang it on one memorable occasion right after Katrina – the first time our church reunited for an “official” service. The song fortified us for what is to come, no matter how it all works out.  The other choices were especially apropos – I Have A Shelter: [media id=2]

And here’s the sermon, if you’re interested to see how we prepared for all this.

My faith may falter. It’s happened to Mary and to many far better Christians than me. But I’m still looking for the Romans 8:28 in all this, and one thing I know for sure will be a benefit. I wrote, in between Katrina and Rita,

The mercy of Hurricane Katrina is that we were able to see how frail and temporary things down here really are. Considering that life is eternal, the length of time we can expect to spend with these material things is so much shorter, compared to the length of our lives, that they are hardly worth mentioning. I have stubbed my toe hundreds of times in my life, but I can’t remember the details of even one time. It’s a reminder to build our house upon the rock, a reminder that to have our life we must lose it. Rita is drifting northward and I find I’m really not bothered by it. We’ll evacuate, or not. Get hit, or not. Flood, or not. My God is sovereign and I am in His hands.

One of the greatest lessons I learned from Katrina is that, as Brent Detwiler said in a sermon, “pain is a magnet for God’s love.” Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. As Brent said, when trouble came, Paul said, “I delight” not “I renounce” or “I bind” or “I rebuke.”  Avoiding pain means avoiding blessings as well.  While some people are celebrating this storm, hoping for cheap political gain, I’m accepting it in the full knowledge that God will use it for his glory and for my benefit, just as He did Katrina.  As I wrote before, “Our God is sovereign, and we are in His hands. And that is a blessed place to be.”

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An Honest Campaign Poster, originally uploaded by Slublog.

Slublog has a nice writeup on Mav’s Veepstakes winner in The Maverick Gets One Right. It’s going to hurt a lot less now. Go read it, I’ll wait… I’ve got nothing better to do, until I can figure out whether or not we have to evacuate to escape the insane Scandi. (Why isn’t Ace all over that angle?!) I really picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

Good, you’re back. So, Maverick can’t be my wingman, but his wingman could. Anytime. I thought I was going to have to settle for voting downticket, but I can push the button on a ticket with Palin on it. Probably chanting, “Yes I can!” but it’s okay, they already think I’m a lunatic at my polling station. Something about the way I danced out of the booth after voting Jindal for Governor.

So as Slublog said,

So because McCain did something I never thought he’d do, I’m going to return the favor and do something I never thought I’d do – donate to his campaign. If you’d like to join me, here’s the link.

Although my reasons certainly differ and furthermore, I don’t think it was a nod to the conservatives as much as a nod to reality. He’d have loved to shaft us (again) but he doesn’t think he can afford to do so.

I’m not donating any money to anyone until I know what Gustav and Hanna are doing and if I’ll still have a house and a business in two weeks, but later I will donate to the campaign – for Palin’s benefit. I’d love to see her get sixteen years of White House duty. And it will be hard-fought and honestly earned, unlike Hillary’s piggybacking on her husband’s career and name recognition.