“I wish I could spend everyday helping others get their lives back together,” voiced a worker at a local recovery center after Hurricane Irma. Another reported, “The destruction is so sad but people coming together to help one another is heart-warming,”
The trees in Key Largo are becoming less brown and greener as new growth can already be visualized. Property cleanup is in full swing as chain saws buzz and bobcats and loaders consolidate and remove trash. Businesses are reopening and residents are going back to work. Many not yet able to do their regular work have become part of the hard working and sweaty labor force of cleanup and reconstruction.
There are short-term and long-term problems to be solved. A family of 5 has been sleeping on wet floors because their home was flooded and they have nowhere to go. There is the woman who lost everything due to the flooding and wind damage to her home. She left the recovery center in tears saying, “I can’t collect the things I need because I’m too overwhelmed.” Dive and snorkel boat businesses are facing the reality that portions of the beautiful coral reefs are gone.
Why can’t we continue helping each other long after we have recovered from the storm? Why can’t we become a part of the solution needed for our fragile environment and ecosystem to recover its former beauty? Why can’t we do a better job of providing low-income housing? Why can’t we listen with sincerity to those who have suffered internal trauma, so their emotions can be healed?
I believe this age-old truth offers solutions for growing a healthier and happier community in the face of all kinds of trauma. –
“No, the kind of fasting I want calls you to free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to stop oppressing those who work for you. Treat them fairly and give them what they earn. I want you to share your food with the hungry and to welcome poor wanderers into your homes. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. “If you do these things, your salvation will come like the dawn. Yes, your healing will come quickly. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind. Then when you call, the LORD will answer. `Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply. “Stop oppressing the helpless and stop making false accusations and spreading vicious rumors! Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as day. The LORD will guide you continually, watering your life when you are dry and keeping you healthy, too. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Your children will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as the people who rebuild their walls and cities. (NLT: Isaiah 58: 6 – 13)