Floods.....and More Floods

Texas...especially Central Texas is usually a very DRY area of the state. The past two years we have had to BEG for rain, hold prayer groups for relief.

This year has started off to be very interesting.

This week at our home...we have received a total of over 9 inches of rain...almost all of our Annual Rainfall of a normal year. Also last month...we also had another flood that sent 5 inches of rain in just minutes, wiping out 100's of giant aged trees and flooding many homes. There were two killed with that flood.

This week...a few miles south of us...got over 2 feet of flood waters in one day.

Sad to say, we have had 5 deaths this week from flood waters. Equally as horrible we have had 3 deaths from lightening from the storms.

One of the drownings was near our home. We live on a hill with a wonderful Farm to Market highway in front of our house. The creek or branch that runs behind our house and around this hill....crosses over the Highway. This flood area is UNSEEN by drivers COMING up and over the hill top. The speed limit is 70 miles per hour...but drivers know that NORMALLY this awesome highway is wide open therefore most drive 10 to 20 miles above the limit...until the highway patrol gives them a little piece of paper that sort of motivates a few to slow down.

Therefore...due to the rains...and especially during the night....many cars have washed off the highway near our home. Yet another mile down this small but dangerous creek...is a tiny road and a concrete slab bridge...right beside our new Cowboy Church. Sunday morning we had a huge rainfall and a lady of 41 drove into that rushing flood and was drowned...headed for church....less than a block up the hill.

Last month flood...a young man drown in trying cross with his pickup....on this same creek but another crossing and another road, 8 blocks back.... (people just really don't realize the depth and POWER of flood waters....which is so sad. One foot of water under a small car can pull it instantly down stream and into a roll.

It breaks everyone's heart to hear of nearby tragedy.

Regardless the reason, loss, pain and suffering is the same. Regardless whether it is drowning or lightening...it's sad and horrible.

Yet...I never hear of a death by LIGHTENING that it doesn't take me right back to my childhood out on the ranch and a unique incident....that GOD was THERE....when I had my OWN encounter with lightening at the tender age of ten. (and I most humbly...thank God for His protection) wow!

On our ranch we had over 500 sheep each Spring. Due to hot weather....and it's a way for ranchers to make money off of the animals....the SHEEP'S WOOL must be sheared off...bagged and sold to the market....to be used in making winter clothing.

In my early years, my brothers, Daddy and hired hands would SHEAR the sheep. Later on, as the boys went into the armed services...Daddy had to hire Mexican migrant workers to come in as a group and shear all the sheep in a couple of days at a time. Very few of the Mexicans could speak English but most understood well enough.

On this particular day...it was about noon....hotter than blue blazes...very muggy...with a huge thunderhead forming in the southwest----that always meant big storms were on the way.

In raising sheep...each year, you always have some Mother Ewes who die while giving birth to their little baby lambs. Sometimes...but not often....another Ewe will 'accept the orphan' lamb...but most often....I HAD TO MAKE PET LAMBS out of them and feed them on cow's milk on 'GINGER ALE BOTTLES....with huge black rubber nipples. Fun and funny. You simply become their Mother. They love you dearly and follow you everywhere you go. They are simply darling pets....they run with your dogs and cats....and THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW that they are really SHEEP!! (we even had one who CHASED CARS with the dogs...ha ha)

That day....Daddy, my brother and the 'sheep shearers' were all pinned up inside of the biggest barn...packed with sheep that were about to be sheared. I was outside of the barn, watching as they let each sheared sheep go AFTER the clipping. My mother had brought me 3 of the big GINGER ALE bottles of milk to feed our 3 pet lambs that were in a WIRE pen at the back of the big barn.

Distant thunder kept rumbling back and forth through the heavens. My mother said that she had better get back to the kitchen....dinner was almost ready for the hired hands and for me to feed the 3 lambs.

The lambs are so hilarious at feeding times (3 times a day) they began bouncing around, dancing and fighting to see WHO gets to go FIRST. (they pushed and shoved so much that I had to feed them THROUGH the wire fence in order to keep them from knocking the bottles out of my hands. I finally was able to feed one lamb and fight off the other two.

At this time...the distant thunder was much closer....but the sky was still nice over head with just a few fast zipping hazey clouds being pushed by a rapid wind and the sun was shining for the most part. I reached down and got my second Ginger Ale bottle of milk and put it through the wire fence as an 'eager lambs mouth instantly grabbed it and began eating. I glanced down at the men working and watched a couple of NAKED sheep come running out of the shed...ha ha... and then..... WHAM...BLAM...CRACK... This gigantic noise split my eardrums.

The next thing I knew....I was down on the ground...in the dirt, head popped against
the ground.

At first all was black...then I saw the most awesome colors of pink, blue and mint greens waving in the air.

I Still lay flat on the ground...but eyes open....the little lamb that I had been feeding was on the other side of the wire fence....in a SITTING position...like a human....his little front feet dangling up at his chest line. He is totally dazed....but sitting up! My eyes then immediately look past the lamb to the gate where my Daddy and brother were. All sorts of yelling and screaming is taking place and sheep are litterly flying EVERYWHERE...jumping, running out to the pasture. My Daddy had been caught behind a gate...the sheep forced him down.

A small Mexican man came rushing out of the barn, looked my direction and began yelling, " Meester Dutch, Meester Dutch, your leetle girl, your leetle girl...queick." My brother came running to me---but by that time I had begun to sort 'get my bearings' and come out of the stupor...realizing the greatest horror of all.

We had all been struck by lightening and YET....we were all still alive.

(the adult theory....not mine...haha was that the lightening had hit the huge barn with the sheet iron roof....the current ran into the ELECTRIC SHEARS of the sheep shearers and blew them backwards...(RUBBER CORDS AND GLOVES) ....then the current went along the barn roof line to the WIRE fence where I was innocently feed three lambs....and sent me flipping backwards into the earth.)

Some even theorized that the BLACK RUBBER nipples on the ginger ale bottles were quite likely the only reason that I was not killed instantly. I was barefooted which certainly proved not to be my protection. But as my beloved Momma so aptly put it....once again our God was watching and HE CHOSE to intervene. And this I believe today. He has done so many times since that hot summer day of lightening bopping me 'down in the dirt' and into 'la la land'.

Thank you, Lord!