This is Toronto's Flooding this past weekend..
Five years ago we woke early to the sound of very heavy rain. Usually it comes and then goes – like regular rain storms do. The clouds come and then drift on by. But that morning it never happened. They came and settled in for about three hours.At 4 AM I looked outside to see what was happening on our street… and by that time the river flowing down our street was about 18 inches deep.
The sewers were filled with water as they tried to handle the amount coming at them. In Peterborough are sewage system has both sewage and storm water.
The end result was that the whole mess came up our drains – filling toilets and the shower drains in the lower level. If houses didn’t have washrooms in their basements – then the water came up the clean out pipes.
Our city was a mess for weeks with garbage piled as high as six feet in front of houses as people emptied the filthy contents of their treasures mixed with rotten sewage. With some streets it was like a tunnel of refuse on both sides of the street.
In Toronto this week it happened to them. People are flooded out and homes are ruined. We certainly feel for them and understand!
Streets are also being washed out – showing the huge sink holes which then shut down streets for weeks – and in this case maybe months.
With every cloud that comes over Peterborough there isn’t a person here that doesn’t take a second look at the sky to see how big it is… wondering if it will happen again.
The flooding is a terrible thing to go through… and a nightmare to clean up after. The last one in our community left me with a hernia repair and lots of recovery time afterward.
What do we do with these natural tragedies? The easiest thing to do is blame our politicians… or government. In Toronto’s flooding this weekend some residents are blaming the city engineers… they haven’t done enough to make the street perfect.
It is always some one else’s problem… or someone else’s decision that caused my pain… and problems.
Sorry to say – it isn’t that way.
In Peterborough during our big flood – the leadership given by the local city councilors was amazing to say the least. Everyone suffered and everyone helped.
An amazing thing that takes place when the whole community comes together and works as one – it is a Community Wow Factor!
It is sad that nothing like this takes place until there is a disaster or tragedy. Wouldn’t it be something if we all pulled in the same direction – instead of pulling against each other?
I am convinced that God allows these difficult things to take place in order to get people moving in one direction.
Reading the story of Moses over you will see the people that he leads not always cooperating. They had their own ideas of what they wanted and what they preferred. But when everyone had the same problem with food or a lack of it, or water or a lack of it, or an enemy coming after them… they chose to work together – follow God’s direction and get moving.
I am convinced that many of the difficult things that come our way…are for a good reason – to get our attention and get us moving again.
There is nothing like good opposition or difficult times coming along to get you moving on to better things. The recession and the problem of hard times have been good for all of us. Cut backs are not bad – but rather the best thing for us to see what we have is amazing… what we don’t have is not a consideration.
Yesterday as we drove through the countryside we looked at trees that were way older than Canada. We saw lakes and rivers that existed way before this country was even dreamed of.
Coming down the road towards us were fairly well off tourists that had driven along ways to come and see what we have as a wealth of attractions. Here we are now situated in the middle of the best part of our province – surrounded with some of the best of everything – and all we have to do is look up and around. We are blessed.
In my own life things are tighter than they have been for a long time. But things have never been better… we recognize that we are blessed.
I am convinced that when the difficult times come… we are more blessed than ever… because we can stop and see what really matters.
We truly are blessed.
~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/
VERY IMPORTANT
Take a look at these images of the Peterborough Flood
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