“Be patient, and watch me work.”

I had just got home from church today. I was glad when our pastor announced that our church is not only sending Health Kits, but also volunteers to help prepare them, and money. In that way, we can help. It seems so little, but with proper coordination of relief efforts, those people will eventually receive the outpouring of love and caring that far away communities are sending.

Our pastor told us that 300 people from the stricken areas will be arriving in the Triad soon, and will be sent to the area hospitals to be screened for health and medical needs. Area churches are being asked to appeal to citizens who have vacant rental homes, apartments, mobile homes, and such in which to settle a family. Many of the displaced will return to their homes in a few months but many more will likely remain in our state, and seek employment, and send their kids to school here. They will need the kindness and generosity of North Carolinians to begin their new lives.

When I got home, the first thing I did was to turn on Headline News to see the latest developments. Immediately, there were two stories being shown, one of a woman and her husband returning to what was left of their home, and the other of a family and their miniature horses.

Of the former, a reporter accompanied the couple to the home site, the neighborhood littered with splintered trees and house parts. The woman found a part of a chair, and lifted it up from the mud. As she picked through the debris, certain items were recognized. “That was in our bedroom,” she said holding what looked like a broken crystal candle-holder. She could not bear it any longer, and began sobbing. The reporter could not stand apart from the sorrow and loss he witnessed that day. As he tried to express his own feelings about being there in the middle of the torn land, he could not find the words. He waved the camera away. A reporter, a man of words for every event and occasion, standing low and lost, just like the couple kneeling on the ground, sifting through the rubble for what was their life. That was the first stab to my heart.

The next story showed a man and his wife standing in their yard. They had weathered the storm. Their home was broken, but enough was left standing that they could live there. I don’t remember where they lived, Louisiana or Mississippi, but as the camera panned their yard, a dead horse lay on the ground. It was one of two miniature horses that did not survive the hurricane winds. They have seven miniature horses that did survive, but now they have a greater problem: there is no hay to feed their little horses. They will lose them all if no hay or feed is found. The man was in tears as he expressed his sorrow over the dead horses and the hungry ones who survived. That was the second stab.

I may be a thousand miles away, but I hear what they are crying for. They cry for what they have lost, and for the help they may have never needed before, but need now. They want someone to hear their stories. The reporter with no words for the woman's sorrow and the man who lost his horses are just two of many thousands of stories that are to be told. I cried.

As I walked down the hall, heart heavy with all the suffering and the sorrow, I raised my arms in a plea. When I pray, my words are very simple. “Lord, what do we do? It’s so much.”

And then, through the tears, came the calm, quiet whisper in my mind, the answer to my prayer.

“Be patient, and watch me work.”

Then I remembered what our church was doing, and what thousands of other churches across the country are doing, and what thousands of other individuals are doing in the cities with the losses. The National Guard is helping now, American Red Cross and other organizations are there, and I realized it was true. He is already at work through His people. It will take time. We must be patient. Watch Him work!