Morning Light

It was a Little House on the Prairie night at the Coates house yesterday.

The storm's arrival was greeted by Floyd and Anne sitting on the porch LOVING the wind and rain and lightning...generally enjoying the show God was putting on for us.
Shortly into the performance, we realized the electricity had gone out...not too unusual for our area in a storm. No problem, right? Wrong.

Floyd called the power company to tell them we were powerless and learned that it would all be fixed by 9 pm. Great, since, thanks to wonderful Daylight Saving Time (in Indiana only the Gov and I like it!) it's light long after 9.

But when he called again for an update, the recording said it would be 5 AM before all was fixed. Oops.

This news left us scurrying about finding candles, matches (where are those easy lighters?) and the never-used oil lamps that are so stinky. What about flashlights? Do we have any batteries? It's getting dark fast here...

My most strategic move was to latch the gate that blocks the stairs to the basement...usually used to corral all the babies but quite useful to prevent a painful journey in the dark.

Floyd can not sleep without a fan blowing in his face, period. (Remind me to get a big ol' battery fan...one that uses about 12 D batteries.) Anyway the solution to this dilemma will amaze you.

My genius husband went to the bathtub to think. (Friends and family have the picture here...) He did these inscrutable calculations in his head about how much power the fan uses in an hour, how much power needed til 5 am, how much power in his car battery...you're getting the picture....and then connected a loooong extension cord from his car in the garage allll the way across the house to our bedroom and the fan he needed. His calculations had showed him that the car battery would power the fan until the electricity came on again so this was a good solution. This man planned for the fact that his car battery would probably be dead by morning but it was worth it to have the fan running.

4 a.m. came with me awake AGAIN realizing I was chilly. Wait! What's that noise? Oh, it's the air conditioner! What's that light....hooray! The power is on! We survived our Little House on the Prairie night. Still don't know whether the car will start though.

I rested in the darkness of the bedroom thinking about how nice it would be when the sun came up and we could see again without help from Duke Energy. I knew I could depend on that ol' sun to show up at the right time. No doubt about that. I thought about the watchman of old who waited for the morning light...

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. (Psalm 130:6, NIV)

I was that watchman for a few moments, waiting for the light.

But does my soul wait for the Lord more than the watchman waits for morning? One grand similarity here: the Lord will come, as sure as the sunrise. I wait for Him, daily, to come and live His life in me.