A Witness
The weather is threatening again today because of it
being very hot and very humid and the expected convergence of both a warm and
cold front later today. I thought maybe
it was time to share what happened last month under similar conditions.
Sometimes life challenges and confirms our faith. In June, several experiences lined up to
underscore that reality.
I have arthritis in both of my hands. It started about ten years ago and has been
gradually getting worse. Lately I had
significant pain in both hands all day long.
It does make it hard to do things I enjoy like kayaking because it is
hard to hold onto the paddle. I don’t
have very good grip strength. I did
receive some relief in the pain after attending a healing Mass about three
years ago, but the pain came back after a couple of months, and when it
returned it was noticeably worse than it was previously.
This summer some relics of St Bernadette are making
their way across the United States. The
relics stopped at three places in the Green Bay Diocese. My wife and I got a chance to reverence the
relics at their second stop - Our Lady of Lourdes in West De Pere. Shortly after our arrival a virtual
pilgrimage to Lourdes was held in the chapel.
During the virtual pilgrimage there was a chance to touch some stones
taken from the grotto where Mary appeared to Bernadette in 1858. Later there was a chance to touch some water
that was drawn from the healing springs at Lourdes. Most people just dipped a finger in and made
the sign of the cross. I didn’t hesitate
to immerse both hands in the water.
I immediately knew that something good had
happened. When I returned to my seat I
flexed my fingers. Normally it hurts to
make a fist, but I could make a fist with both hands without pain. In fact, the pain seemed completely gone in
my left hand. And while I could still
feel some discomfort in my right hand, it was much improved. I was grateful and cautious since I had
temporary relief once before.
The very next day significant storms were predicted in
our area. I was outside on the patio as
it grew darker and darker. I was
finishing up the book that I had been reading, Worshipping a Hidden God,
by Archbishop Martinez. The last third
of the book deals with carrying our crosses with joy and the power of spiritual
desolation – those times in life when God does not feel close or even
loving.
I prayed for God to protect us and lessen the strength
of the storm. About an hour later it
looked ominous. I turned on the weather
for an update and heard that there was a confirmed tornado on the ground in
Seymour which lies about ten miles pretty much due west of our home. The tornado was headed east.
I called to Michelle who was in the kitchen that we needed
to get to the basement. As an
afterthought I decided to run back upstairs to grab my phone. I could hear a loud rumbling sound. I glanced out the patio door to see the trees
bent over precariously.
Our power went out almost immediately. After about twenty minutes we came
upstairs. Tree limbs were pressing up
against the west facing kitchen windows.
The storm had blown our large linden tree over and it was now resting on
the kitchen roof. It was still raining
hard but no water was leaking in so we were hopeful that the damage was
minimal. After the rain stopped I went
outside and noticed that one of our big white pines also snapped off about half
way up but thankfully it had landed in our open field. It could have fallen on the neighbor’s driveway
or on the road, so this was the best direction it could have fallen.
Our house is built on a high-water table. Our sump pump runs all year round. Past experience has proven that when the
power goes out that we have about two hours before water starts collecting in
the basement. We waited and prayed and
hoped. After about three hours water was
in fact collecting so I began bailing water into five-gallon pails and carrying
them up the basement stairs, down the driveway and pouring the water into the
ditch. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to
do that for long.
However, the power remained off and I bailed and
hauled buckets all night long. I have to be honest that much of that night I
wondered about God. Why hadn’t he
answered that prayer of protection.
After all, the power went out immediately as the storm hit. There was a tree on my roof. And I was dripping with sweat and exhausted
from hauling hundreds of pails of water up the basement steps and out to the
ditch. Didn’t God care about me? I wasn’t very joyful to be carrying this
cross.
There were two things that I did notice that long
night. First, despite all of the time I
was hauling pails of water outside I didn’t get bitten by a single
mosquito. Second, that night must have
been the peak of the lightning bugs this summer. When I did hesitate just for a minute or two
to notice, the field across the road from our yard was aglow with thousands,
maybe tens of thousands of fireflies. I
don’t think I had ever seen a bigger display of their strange luminous green
lightshow.
About 4:30 AM I decided to take a break and drive
around the neighborhood to see if I could see why the power was still out. I didn’t make it very far. Just a few blocks from home I came upon a
stretch where the road was impassable.
It was choked with fallen trees and power poles. I knew that power would not be back soon.
A few hours later I was able to get out to the highway
in the opposite direction and was blessed to be able to purchase one of the
last portable generators still on the shelf at Fleet Farm. A short time later I had it up and running
and was able to power my sump pump from it.
Blessed relief from bailing water!
I spent that day, and the next, moving the power cord from the sump pump
to the chest freezer, to the refrigerator.
When the power did come back on – 50 hours from when it had gone off, I
was thankful for a dry basement, that everything in the freezer was still
frozen solid and everything in the fridge was fine.
A licensed contractor came to get the tree off of the
house and I was able to confirm that there was no significant damage to the
roof. The rain gutters were squashed in
a couple places, but that was the worst of it.
In time it became apparent that, despite ten confirmed
tornados in the area and widespread damage, no one was killed, or even
significantly injured. Even all of the
cleanup was completed safely and without incident.
And as I reflected back on it, if the relics of St
Bernadette had not been touring the U.S. and if one of the locations wasn’t
just twenty minutes away, I wouldn’t have had a chance to reverence those
relics and receive that miraculous relief from the arthritis in my hands. There is no way without that relief that I
would have been able to carry heavy buckets of water all night long. No doubt we would have had significant water
damage to the basement and perhaps the freezer and furnace and water
heater. Even if the pain does return in
my hands at some point in the future, I know I have already been blessed.
God truly is good all the time, even in the times when
we don’t feel his presence or his love for us.
Life at times blocks our view of him, but he always has his loving eyes
on us. He is always with us; he is
always alive within us. Keep the faith!
His Peace,
Deacon Dan
[Originally published on Quad Parish website July 29, 2022]
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