A Break from the Ordinary

Why hello, dear neglected blog of mine… yes, the circus family is still alive and well.  It’s just been a busy week at the circus, what with an earthquake, a hurricane, a Women of Faith conference (another blog post to come about that soon), a head cold, a fantasy football draft and home schooling….

Right now I have mounds, literally mounds of unwashed clothes and dishes to take care of, shirts to tye dye, food to buy, and our annual Labor Day weekend to prep for… but I wanted to stop and preserve a few moments that I didn’t want to forget…

Last Tuesday, I was babysitting a friend’s 3 kids when a 5.8 earthquake shook our area.  I was holding my friends baby when I stopped to stare at a spot on our recently painted stairway… “What’s that I wondered?”  and then suddenly the stairway seemed to slant and I felt myself move a bit… The 3 oldest kids (7, 6, 5) were playing downstairs, and the 2 and 4 year old were playing in the bedroom.  I went down the hall to wake my baby and grab the girls from the bedroom b/c I could hear the house actually creaking/groaning  as it shook all over and I thought for sure one of the big trees in our yard was falling onto the house.  I rushed them to the stairway when the downstairs crew yelled up, “Mom, we didn’t do it!” 

As I rushed everyone out the front door, I realized that no trees were falling and I then said, “I think we just felt an earthquake.”    My next thought was, “I hope Scott felt it.”  (because Scott has always wanted to feel an earthquake… for real, every time he flies to CA he says, “Wouldn’t it be so cool if an earthquake happened?”)  As we ran out the door my friend pulled in our driveway to pick up her kids.  She couldn’t figure out why we were rushing outside when she got there.   The next thing I know the kids are quickly bringing out their treasured belongings in case they were going to get destroyed in the earthquake. 

Apparently at the circus house, shoes, Legos, a doll, and toy guns are the items you grab when fleeing your house. 

Thankfully nothing was damaged and none of us were hurt in the earthquake.  For us, it was an exciting break from the norm… a chance to experience a natural phenomenon we don’t normally get to experience on the east coast.    A few days later in the waiting room at gymnastics my 5 yr old asked the lady beside us if she felt the earthquake.  The lady answered, “Oh my yes… wasn’t it just horrible?  What did you think of it?”  My 5 yr old looked up at her with a huge grin and said, “I loved it!”

A few days later we got to experience a hurricane… again we were spared any true damage as we simply lost power for 48 hrs.   For the circus fam it was a fun few days of camping at home… cooking on the gas stove, flushing with water from the tub, falling asleep with flashlights and the eternal racket of our neighbors generators whirring 24/7.   

As the storm raged in the middle of the night I found myself wondering “What would a worse hurricane feel like?”  And I was crying out to God to please protect our house from the huge trees surrounding it.  As I prayed I couldn’t help but think of how mighty and powerful our God is.  He created the wind.  His voice alone can stop the wind.  What power He has in his hands!  

Sunday morning found our yard littered with branches and leaves, but thankfully our house and property were safe. 

There were trees on our very street which fell during the storm. 

Mark 4:39 and 4:41

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”