Each week there’s a decision to be made. Do I go heavy or light with a column? Most weeks, I go light and try to find some humor or recall some funny stories from Sunflower County. But with the heaviness of this past week with tornados leveling lives and cities and another school shooting, it’s hard to find light. But there is plenty of inspiration.
Today, I heard Romans 8:28 shouted at me when I was in a depressed mental state.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”
I love God and my depressed mental state doesn’t even compare to probably 99 percent of the Delta right now. The things I’m facing are not lifechanging. I have more than just the clothes on my back and my home is still standing, at least at my writing deadline. Hope I didn’t just test fate.
But even through the devastation, I’ve seen smiles spread across Facebook. Yes, the giving hearts and hands and bodies of my Delta family have come together to nurse back to health, feed and hug and pick up what’s left of someone’s belongings and gather up their pride and life. God healed my hometown of Inverness after that 1971 lifechanging tornado. The town is not the same and still bears the scars but it dug deep and built back. The men who were my father’s and grandfathers’ friends didn’t let the Hamlet I call home slip into the abyss and disappear. They held up what was left and built back around it. They cried, they ached but they move forward, with help from those around. And they kept moving forward and they are still there today. And Silver City and Rolling Fork will be too. As will Blackhawk, Winona, Amory and other towns hit by this evil wind.
Lots of prayers, lots of hugs, thousands of bottles of water and even crayons and toys are being gathered to help sustain, help encourage, help hold up and help go on. It’s what the Delta does. No matter how many times the obituary of my birth and stomping grounds is written, the more it is erased by those following the will of God and finding a way through.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”
God will make it all good. Just go look at Inverness.
