As I write this at 10 PM Thursday I have 19 relatives traveling in 7 cars out of Beaumont, Texas, running from Hurricane Rita. Rain from outer bands of the storm is falling outside my house in Cape Coral, Florida. Rita stretches 400 miles over the western half of the Gulf of Mexico. My family has been driving for 12 hours and covered less than 100 miles in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Fortunately, they found gasoline a few minutes ago and refueled. They cannot find hotel rooms available anywhere in East Texas so they are heading toward relatives in Arkansas.

Natural disasters, and the threat of them, show us how weak and dependent we really are. God is so good to us so often that we tend to presume on His kind provisions. It becomes hard for us to pray that He will give us this day our daily bread when we have cabinets and refrigerators full of food. Trials remind us of our need for grace. We all need it every moment of every day. Learning to remember that we need God’s grace when times are easy prepares us for clinging to the hope that we are not beyond grace when times are hard.

May God’s grace shine through the trials of hurricanes.