Nashville Flood: Peace, In the Midst of the Storm

Sunday Morning, May 2nd 2010, it was raining hard, really hard, and the road by our home had flooded. My husband had decided he was going to try and make it to church, even though the authorities were encouraging people to stay home due to road closures. This was the most rain Tennessee had ever seen.

Upon arrival at the church, there was some water in our 3.5 acre field, which was high, but nothing unusual. We had a total of two people who were able to avoid the road closures and be in attendance that morning, not including my husband, the pastor. After their service, the waters were still high in the field and had moved up to our pavilion (the waters had never been that high before). My husband headed home to his family. Soon he would realize that this would be the last time he would ever walk through our church as it was.

In disbelief, we watched the television showing what was happening just down the road from our home. Never in our wildest dreams would we have ever thought that is was going to happen to us as well. After all the rains had stopped, we thought the worst was over. The waters had covered the floor of the pavilion and came into the parking lot, but our church was still ok. Without any kind of announcements or our knowledge, the Tennessee Engineers released the dam. Remember, we had checked the church, it was fine.A couple of hours later, our worst nightmares were about to be realized. A neighbor called to let us know the flood waters were now in the church. My husband rushed down there. When he arrived, he couldn't believe his eyes. The waters were not just up to the church, they were surrounding the entire building a couple of feet deep (along with the pavilion, church van, two sheds and 3.5 acres). By the next morning, the waters continued to rise, and rise and rise. At it's peak, the waters reached 4.5 foot inside the church building itself and covered our pavilion to the tip of the roof. In a moment, everything we had was gone.

On Monday, a group of our church people were gathered at our property in disbelief. As far as you could see, all of our property was submerged under water. No longer could you see our field, our playground, our pavilion, the door knob to the front door , even the benches that sat on our churches front porch. We were... scared. As we looked at our place of worship we had worked so hard to renovate just a couple of years prior, we were breathless. We all joined hands to pray as our church Mother asked the question "Pastor Scott, what are we going to do?" At that exact moment our insurance company called to inform us, we had no coverage. My husband turned to her, and the rest of those who were there, with no hesitation, and said, "We are going to rebuild". We joined hands, prayed, and believed God.

We then took an inflatable raft through the church to see if we could salvage anything. When we got inside, everything was under water. We were floating on top of our sanctuary seating. The refrigerator was floating on it's side down the fellowship hall. Some of the cabinetry was upside down and the stove was completely under the muddy water. The Pastors office furniture was floating on top of his desk and blocked the doorway. The one thing I remember is taking a picture of our bulletin board in the hallway, which had a poster of "PCG National Missions, Disaster Relief"! Missions has a new meaning when you become the mission.

The road has been hard and long, but I do know that God will make a way, even when there seems to be no way. He has always been faithful to us, and we will continue to be faithful to Him! To all of you who have given, to all of you who are still giving, to those who didn't even know us, to those who just felt the leading of the Holy Ghost and acted, we say thank you, thank you, thank you so much from the very bottom of our hearts.

We are rebuilding, and we do still have a ways to go. Today however, it is no longer a matter of "if" we will get back into our church, it is simply a matter of "when". We will continue in this journey and know that God is still God. He is always faithful to all that call upon His name. And yes, it is absolutely true that when the enemy comes in like a flood, we find peace in the midst of the storm, for he lifts up a standard against him by declaring PEACE BE STILL!