The Aftermath
The wall of water, from the sudden and protracted heavy thunder storm system, had finally receded, a few months’ worth of rain had just fallen in a couple of days so the resultant muddy soup in their neighbourhood had at last finally drained or had been pumped away, so after days away from their homes, the Police had finally lifted the cordon and let them go home, well back to what now was the remains, or a semblance of their memories, now just a battered house. That which was there now before their eyes did not look at all like the familiar place they had known for so many years. The yards where the kids and the local children had so joyfully played on most afternoons and summers days, was now torn up and where once was grass and lawns was now rubbish, silt and debris littering the ground. The play house had been swept over against the tree and the force of the water had turned it into litter, just leaving enough behind so that they could only just recognise it, or something that look like it.
The flowerbeds and potted plants were sort of there but so much had been washed away, and so much silt and debris from upstream was now dumped in its place, it was sort of unrecognizable. Where once was a sort of ordered and organised front yard now looked more like the local rubbish dump on a busy day? The front door was open and it looked like the river of muddy water had flowed right on through and the tell-tale spray can symbol on the window recorded that what had been theirs and full of lovely memories, was now marked for demolition, to be finally swept away by some huge mechanical monster and unceremoniously dumped into the back of a dump truck, completing what the deluge had almost done all on all on its own.
Inside the place was a mess with silt ankle deep on the floor, furniture and belongings washed about and deposited in odd places, cupboard doors swept open and debris deposited within them. It was an eerie sound of silence, and up from the silt on the floor came that wet and stale stench that was unique to this type of situation, and once smelt it was never more to be forgotten.
What was, and used to be, was now just a faint and distant memory, as things seen did not at all reflect what had been there from so many happy years before, it had all been swept away, and what was seen was now a distorted and distasteful caricature of a wonderful past, all gone in just a few short hours. Soon all that will be left will be an empty construction site type of appearance with some machine tracks from the site clearance, the big tree will still be in the corner of the section, and very little else, it was either swept away in the deluge, or hauled away as trash for the land fill, now just a slightly blank canvas.
We have had so many disastrous floods over the past few months and many have been affected directly, many more have had friend or families pass through this disaster, and yet many more have suffered a “Dry Disaster” where one of the many earthquakes over the past six or so years has either trashed the home all on its own, or left it in a semblance of a house hardly holding together, and it is also condemned and awaiting demolition.
It is most difficult to start all over again from scratch, refugees do it all the time, the death of the “bread winner,” a family split and some leave for other places, alone, or back to living with a family member or a friend, and you even hear that people move into their car or van and are sort of “freedom campers” as they have nothing much more than the cloths that they stand up in. A house fire or a bush fire sweeping through the neighbourhood and all that is left is memories, a pile of ash and some twisted bits of metal and a few shells of burnt out vehicles, and a brick chimney here or there.
Are you able and ready to walk away from it all, to leave it all behind in an instant? Mrs Lot could not, and with disaster snapping hot on her fleeing heels she slowed and delayed, she turned around and the disaster overwhelmed her and she perished. There are numerous cases from Australia where delay to escape from an impending bush fire has had disastrous consequences, and recently disastrous storm systems and rapidly rising flood waters have caught the unwary napping as it were and they often perish, but sometimes they get a reprieve and are plucked from the very jaws of death, rescued.
There are so many more impending disaster to be faced ahead of us, and we never know when a vehicle accident on the highway, things like a Heart Attack, Stroke, Cancer or other calamity will come knocking at our door and we are not able to refuse it entry and to turn away the impending doom. Do you have a close relationship with Jesus Christ? Have you committed your life to him, given up your sin and now live a new life? Today is the time to commit your life to him, along with all your possessions, and then everything belongs to Jesus Christ, and you are safe in his arms.
Dear Reader; We never know when we will pass from life unto death, or translation/rapture and then what you have accumulated is all now left behind. Let us fix our eyes on eternal things, eternal life, for the things over here are of no value when compared to things over there. Heaven is so cheap and so near, so commit your life and all, right now to Jesus Christ, and live. Those who “escape natural disasters” are always happy to be just alive, all the rest does not matter, so obtain today “Real Life in Jesus Christ.”
