Removing the Rubble

“Meanwhile, the people of Judah said, ‘The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.” Nehemiah 4:10

The year was 1989 and the devastation was at the hands of Hurricane Hugo. We live in the middle of six acres, full of pine trees, oaks and cedars. Through the night the wind violently whistled as we heard the breaking of trees outside our window. As the light fought to appear in the eerie and damp morning of gray skies, our heart and spirit failed at the devastation of the storm. Our driveway, which is a half-mile long, was littered with tree after tree, not to mention the broken trees that were twisted into each other on both sides of the drive. We lost close to 500 trees that night. For some reason I felt the need to go to the top of the hill and examine the damage. In order to get to the top I climbed over tree after tree across the drive until the count was up to 62. When I got to the top I looked over the horizon and was simply overwhelmed at the work that lay before us. Where beauty used to be displayed was utter chaos and destruction. The rubble left behind was mind blowing and seemed impossible that it would ever be disposed of and the beauty of the land returned. One thing I knew for sure…for order and beauty to return there had to be a lot of debris removing efforts.

As many of us have experienced, the death of a loved one can be more powerful than anything nature has to offer. We get that phone call and suddenly our lives are twisted and broken just like the trees. The debris lays scattered along the pathways we must travel. Devastation and despair is our traveling companion and it is a journey that must be traveled. We climb over emotion after emotion to try to get our breath and get back to a point in life where we can see the horizon again.

God will not leave us alone to remove the rubble, but will kneel with us. He will place His healing hands around each emotion and remove it. Our pathways of debris will be washed away through our tears as God heals our hearts. Whether our devastation is the death of a loved one or other discouraging circumstances, we must trust that removing the rubble is a certainty. Beauty will reveal itself as the rubble is removed, piece by piece.

You may be depleted by your storm, but you can be certain that after the storm, the clouds will disappear, the rubble will be removed and the Son will beam again.

'So we rebuilt the wall...for the people worked with all their heart.' Neh. 4:6