Remembering Katrina

It may be fitting that on the 2nd anniversary of a destructive storm the weather forecasters named "Katrina" there are large rain clouds over the Florida Gulf Coast. I don't know what the weather is doing in Louisiana and Mississippi, but these ominous clouds remind me of the power and potential of rain and wind.

We've needed rain for the past two summers. But we do not need the rain of a tropical storm -- we need gentle rains that come for 24 or more hours and water crops, trees, and lawns. We need afternoon showers, not the destructive forces that come with tropical activity.

I continue to pray about the weather: thanking God for the rain when it comes and remembering his promises to Noah and creation not to destroy the earth by flood. I think of that Bible story almost every time I see a rainbow. I pray for colleagues and friends in Mississippi and Louisiana. Some friends have moved to Gulfport or New Orleans since the storms. Others have moved away, even coming here to Pensacola. I pray for friends made in Gautier, MS and surrounding cities in the months following that storm.

Finally, I pray that God will spare this nation from another storm this hurricane season. I know that the way the earth rotates, storms will swirl in the oceans and some will make landfall. They have been hitting the Pensacola Bay area since the Spanish settled and abandoned their settlement here in the 1500s. But I pray that we are spared again this year so we may prepare for the next landfall.