Dodged a bullet

I gotta start this entry by saying everything good in my life is only because God has brought them about and I'm grateful to Him for that. Curiously, even if you don't believe or understand it, it's also true in your own life...so too may be the 'bad' things.

We spent about 36 hours in hurricane Ike's crosshairs. That's longer than usual before forecasts predict a move somewhere else. Packing to leave stinks and thinking you may return to a house gone or damaged sure can make you anxious. I've finally learned to recall Matthew chapter 6 when something worries me. Read it to find out what you're told three separate times NOT to do by Jesus himself. Worry changes nothing except to distract and delay action. Reject worry as wasted energy and move on.

Ike eventually turned north which was great for us. We only had really high tides and violent beaches for 2 days. Every time we go thru this process I wonder why I'd play russian roulette with God's oceans by living on a sandbar. Then the surge comes and I can't keep myself from driving all over the island points looking at what the ocean is doing at each one. It's so dynamic, changing by the moment and I'm in constant awe. It's like a girlfriend that is so beautiful you stay with her even though she is high-maintenance and could ruin you whenever she wants. Whether calm and clear or brown and dangerous, it keeps me in wonder and I have to keep looking. I know the people around Galveston understand that feeling and am sorry they got dumped on. The sea dumps you knowing you'll take it back, again and again.

I took these picks the day of a landfall over 180 miles away but still, restaurants and baitshops here looked like islands. Ike was like a huge fat bully...not fast but if he caught you he could just sit on you and crush you. Cat 5's Katrina and even Rita (stronger) didn't produce the swell tides that sluggish cat 2 Fat Ike did.