From the Pastor’s Desk-
April (Resurrection Day)
Kirk and Dorothy did experience Hurricane Helene in different ways.
Kirk: “I thought I was going to die the night of the hurricane, I really did. I was sleeping in a chair outside my house after the hurricane had passed through and I felt the water lapping up my legs,” he said. “The water from the storm surge came in so quickly, and soon everything was flooded. I saw my neighbor float by on a blow-up mattress. Everything at my house is ruined, it’s all gone.”
Dorothy: “The storm surge came up so quickly and was rushing like a river so I couldn’t open the door. I finally got a window open to get out of the house, but the water was over three feet deep,” the 76-year-old reported. “I held onto the window frame looking for help and saw my neighbors being swept down the street by the strong current. One of my neighbors spent 14 hours on the top of her pickup before she could be rescued.”
Resurrection Day has two implications.
The first is that you were captured. You are in big trouble. That trouble started in Eden garden when Adam and Eve gave in to temptation and disobeyed God by eating fruit not meant for them. Sin was ushered into the world and the penalty for that sin is death, physical and spiritual. That curse/penalty is in every human ever born. You inherited it from our original parents, again Adam and Eve.
But the second implication is that you were rescued.  When Jesus died on the cross, he uttered his victory declaration “It is finished” meaning that the penalty/punishment for sin had been paid for by His sacrifice.  You now have a way to be saved from this disaster.  That way is by putting your faith and trust in Jesus and Him alone for your salvation, your eternal life. Then when Jesus came back from the dead, He gives us victory over death. So, you do not need to be afraid or captured by sin or fear death.
Kirk arrived at a Red Cross emergency shelter in Hudson, Florida, the next morning. “Everything you see me wearing was donated to me,” he says. “I have nothing. The Red Cross people here have taken care of me the best. They’ve given me everything I need right now, a place to sleep, food to eat. We’re here, and we’re alive — and we’re going to be okay.”         (Continued on Pastor’s Desk green link)