Well blow me down!

Yep, apparently Ike watched some Popeye before he made his way through a very large portion of the state of Texas because he blew things down all over the place!

We went back home today to assess the damage. Everything looked pretty good until we got to our master bedroom and found a tree had come through the ceiling in 4 different places! There was water everywhere, and there was already a very musty, mildewy, nasty stench.

After checking everything out, we decided that Ike must have gone to the Amelia Bedelia School of Home Design.

When we mentioned wanting a roof garden, we pictured something like this:

But this is what Ike had in mind:

We thought it would be great to have a trellis to sit under, but we pictured something like this:

This is what Ike delivered:

Relationships with neighbors are important, so we thought maybe a bridge to connect our yard with our backyard neighbor's would be nice. This is what we pictured:

This is what we got:

We also thought an arbor to connect our yard to our next door neighbor's yard might seem welcoming. We envisioned something along these lines:

But, of course, Ike chose to work with what was available, so this is what we ended up with:

We knew a skylight in the patio—something like this—would be a great addition:

But this is what Ike chose to fashion for us instead:

The kids said they wanted a pond to fish in:

But they never dreamed it would mean giving up the swimming pool!

We thought a fireplace insert like this would be nice:

But instead, Ike chose to insert something into the other end of the fireplace:

As for the inside, we knew we needed to do a better job of "bringing the outdoors in," as they say. We thought this could be accomplished by adding a few plants:

But Ike said it was a waste to only use plants when you could use trees instead:

And finally, we thought an indoor waterfall would give us just the ambience we were looking for. We pictured something like this:

But, as always, Ike had something a little different in mind:

Here is the "little house in the big woods" we bought 9 years ago.

Two hurricanes later, it's basically just a "little house."

And yet we remain completely confident that God is with us in the midst of this and that He is in control! We know that He is our provider. He gave us this house nine years ago, and we are confident that He will see us through all of the repairs that need to be made to it now. We know that He is our protector. Obviously he gave our family a safe place to stay during the storm, but He has also protected our hearts. After two hurricanes, we are more convinced than ever that it is for our own good that God tells us not to store up treasures on earth! He knows they're only temporary, and He doesn't want us to be heartbroken when something happens to them! We were created to glorify God—not the things of this world—and there is an indescribable peace that comes from doing just that. And finally, we know that God loves children! The first picture is Hannah's swing set after Rita came through in 2005, and the second one is the girls' swing set after Ike came through. Call me corny, but every time I sing "Jesus Loves the Little Children" these days, this is what I picture in my head!

Confident that God is our Jehovah-Jireh,