on Katrina: “This is a nightmare,” Blanco added, “but one that will give us an opportunity for rebirth.”

I feel helpless.

I'm journaling about this on here, because I feel like I have to get it out in some way. I'm distraught about this hurricane, which before last night I didn't seem to care a bit about. I'm thankful that God opened my eyes to see the tragedy that is happening just so He can teach me a few things through it.

It's sad that it often takes a tragedy to teach us things we should've known before. And people question why "God allows this stuff to happen." I'm not saying I've never questioned that before, but I don't doubt that He's working in the midst of it, that's for sure. If He's teaching me here in IL where I'm physically unaffected by this storm, then I can't imagine how He's working where people are actually facing the effects of Katrina physically.

I've watched the news and slideshows of pictures from the storm, and I can't stop thinking about how it must feel to have no escape. How humbling. How reliant and dependent on others you'd have to be right now. No food. No electricity. No clean water. No transportation. No rules, really. And no escape. If I'm ever without food or clean water, it's not like I can't just drive somewhere or walk down the road and find it. These people have absolutely nowhere to go. And the funny thing is, this is daily life for some in other countries.

I read on an MSN article today about people swimming through water, having to push floating cars out of their way just to get through and swim along with the current. They're forced to ignore the dead bodies because there are survivors who need to be the main priority right now, so they swim right past floating carcasses. It sounds sick, but what other options do they have?

I can't figure out what you'd do w/ babies and little children...the elderly who need to be hooked up to oxygen tanks, diabetics who need their insulin shots, people in hospitals or at home who need prescriptions.

And all the while I can't figure out how people go through this life claiming to be faithless. They don't believe in anything, or they'd rather suggest that there are many different belief systems that one can choose from that will lead to the same place. I beg to differ. Isn't it obvious that people who claim to have no faith really do have faith? Isn't it obvious that there's something beyond this world and the temporal things we see?

It's a city in ruins. And it's not anything new or different. It happened thousands of years ago, and it is happening today. We have to realize we're not indestructible. We're not unbreakable. And in situations where it seems there is no escape, that is our only escape--to realize that we are not the center of it all.

What are you putting your hope in?