Lament...Or Not

"It's that time of year..." unfortunately not when the world falls in love. It's mid-October, and striding jauntily along with an evil glint in his eye is Mr. Stress. He has successfully weaseled his way into the lives of most of my girls during this season of mid-terms, school activities, boyfriend problems (or the lack thereof), etc. In the last few days, my office has been full of the sounds of weeping and woe. Fortunately, at this point at least, I am not the one supplying this excess of lamentation. I am simply the one who is there, the one who listens, the one who comes alongside. Along with the normal, run of the mill college stress, I have also encountered some heartbreaking sagas as well; broken hearts, crushed spirits, deep sadness, true woe. In the face of this grief, it is a blessing to know that I don't have to know all the answers, fix all the problems, offer the sagest advice. I just have to be there, and together my girls and I can go to Jesus. What a privilege! What a comfort! Not quick solutions and pasted together remedies but the person of Jesus. He offers us Himself, and it is enough.

So, I'm sitting at the computer waxing eloquent about grief when my world shifts on its axis ever so slightly. THERE'S A GAS LEAK IN THE DORM! CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT! EVACUATE THE BUILDING! THE GAS COMPANY SAYS THE NUMBERS SAY WE'RE IN DANGER OF AN EXPLOSION! QUICK! MOVE! NO, YOU CAN'T GO BACK INTO THE DORM TO GET YOUR HOMEWORK TO DO WHILE YOU'RE WAITING! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! OK, slight overkill, but it was fun to read, wasn't it? We did have a gas leak, and the fire department did come - as evidenced by these grainy cell phone pictures. It's actually kind of cool to post grainy cell phone pictures. Those are usually the ones posted in the tabloids. You can't really tell what's happening, but you're sure it has to be bad. Anyway, here are two for the tabloids.

This is the truck from the gas company with various firemen being helpful by setting up a large fan to blow out the fumes and generally just being there in case the aforementioned explosion decided to become a reality.


Here we have the fearless firemen ACTUALLY ENTERING THE BUILDING. *shudder* Oh, wait, some of them are leaving. THAT MEANS THEY WERE IN THE BUILDING! *second appreciative shudder*



I do praise God for keeping us safe. The gas was leaking into the building for several hours, and we could have had a major catastrophe.

I guess I will skip my lamenting for now. I had a good lament planned. I was going to pronounce woes on a great many things, but now I just don't want to anymore. So...I won't.

Have a stupendous day, and if you smell natural gas CALL THE GAS COMPANY AND GET OUT OF THE BUILDING!