The God of Wind and Rain

March 1985. I was a junior in high school. We lived in a very large twenties era house owned by a hotshot lawyer in town. The rent was a few days late and a sheriff came to the door to tell us we had to move in thirty days. This was on a Monday or a Tuesday. We thought we had plenty of time.
Friday, lunchtime. I was pondering participles in my English class when I was called out to the hallway. Somebody met me there and told me they had driven by my house and saw people throwing things out of the upstairs windows onto the lawn. I hurriedly ran to the phone and called Mom who came to get me. We frantically pulled up to the house just in time to see someone throwing one of my great grandmother's hurricane lamps out the window and onto the lawn below, which was littered with our belongings. The men were laughing at our anguish as they continued to toss things out the door and windows. Apparently they had been at it for some time because most of our things were outside. The refrigerator, the ancient upright piano, all of our clothes, record albums, food, everything thrown out on the lawn in a haphazard jumble. The men had been sent by the lawyer who had taken things into his own hands, unwilling to wait the full thirty days for us to move. They soon finished the job and drove off in a pick up truck, still laughing as we stood among the wreckage of our lives in the light drizzling rain.
By this time my sisters had arrived home from school and my mother had arranged for a place to move all of our stuff. Slowly, one pick up load at a time we began moving the things off of our lawn and into shelter.
In the early evening my aunt came over to help. We worked all night in the light drizzle until about midnight or one AM. My mom was off with the latest load and my sisters and aunt and I were standing together under the front porch awning. As we talked it began to pour. We still had a lot of stuff on the lawn and were very worried about everything getting wet. As we stood there my aunt began to pray. I will never forget it. "Lord, You are the God of the wind and rain and we ask You now to stop the rain until we can get all this stuff under shelter. In Jesus name. Amen." As we opened our eyes and lifted our heads the rain began to lift and then stopped. To say we were amazed would be a huge understatement. But there was more to come. A little while later the rain began to pour. She prayed a second time: "Lord again we ask you to stop the rain, in Jesus name." Again as we opened our eyes the rain stopped.
Mom came back; we loaded up the pick up for the umpteenth time and she left.
A while later the rain really began to come down. Again as we gathered under the porch she began to pray. This time though the rain did not lesson. Did God not hear us? Did He not choose to answer? Was our stuff going to be ruined? As we looked around we realized that every single thing left outside was now covered by plastic and not a thing was getting wet. Standing there under the front porch we were comforted by the presence of God in a very, very tangible way. In the midst of injustice and our temporary homelessness He was there.

This was a very difficult thing to write about. I really had to think about it before I began to type. It's very hard to relive the pain of that day; hard for me to relate it and I'm sure it will be hard for my family to read about. However, out of that dark, dark day came a revelation that God is who He says He is and it's worth the shaking hands on the keyboard and tears to let other people know. God is there. He cares. He loves. He IS.