The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock

When I was a kid in Sunday School, we learned the song, "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock."

The wise man built his house upon the rock,

The wise man built his house upon the rock,

The wise man built his house upon the rock,

And the rains came tumbling down!

The rains came down and the floods came up,

The rains came down and the floods came up,

The rains came down and the floods came up,

And the house on the rock stood firm.

Of course the song was about building your life, your hopes, your dreams, your eternity on faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Many people build their "houses" on the shifting sands of success, money, recognition, fame, and the like.  When storms come, their houses are decimated.  When eternity comes calling, well, those that don't know the Lord will be tragically separated from God.

In today's post, I'll show a few more storm damage photos.  As we drove down the road, the first thing we came to was our church.  We noticed that our sign had blown over and that many shingles were missing, but the main thing was that the high winds had blown our steeple over.

Superficial damage, mainly.  There was some ceiling damage to the church along with other minor issues, but really not much compared to many other people nearby.

We drove on to Welsh, Louisiana, a town 10 miles to our west where our son, Russ, lives.  Hurricane Laura moved in to the coast about 40 miles south and west of us.  The closer you move west, the more destruction.  We were saddened when we drove up to Russ' home.  His neighbors had a large water oak tree that fell over his house and onto his roof, puncturing the roof in numerous places.

You can see in the photo below that the tree was hollowed out and weak and should have been cut down prior to the storm.

While we were sad for a minute, we began to work to clear the tree from his house.  The whole family pitched in to work.  It was hot, but we pressed on.  

We pulled limbs to the side of the road, building a big windrow that blocked off the view of the road.  The town crews will come to pick up the limbs.  They've got their work cut out for them (pardon the pun.)

Slowly, we made headway.  Inch by inch, it's a cinch!  

As more and more of the tree was removed, we could clearly see the extent of the damage.  When the tree fell through the roof, it damaged the house structurally and it rained in the house, causing more damage.

Thankfully, Russ has insurance and the adjuster has already come to inspect the damage.  We pray that Russ will be made whole.  

When we finished, we realized that the larger parts of the tree would have to be removed by professionals.  The large parts of the trunk leaned against the house and threatened additional damage.

The goal was to remove the tree and put up a tarp to prevent further damage by rainfall.

At the end of the day, I think we accomplished that.  Although Russ is sad, so many people lost so much more.  We are truly blessed and grateful.