Texas Tragedy Is Also A Miracle

Mother Nature showed her ugly side on Saturday night and Sunday morning and claimed over 68 lives in the small town of Kerrville, Texas. As the rains came down at over 12 inches per hour, all that water had just one path to take. The water flowed into the Guadalupe River near San Antonio, and the river rose over 27 feet in just 45 minutes. In the path of the raging wall of water was Camp Mystic, a spiritual camp for young girls that had served the area for nearly 100 years without any such incident until yesterday. At the time of this writing, 27 young campers are still unaccounted for and presumed lost in the unrelenting waters of the Guadalupe.

There was no opportunity for advance warning of impending doom, and although I saw numerous newscasts attempt to pin blame on Trump, and his unnecessary cuts in U.S. Weather Department staffing. These claims were quickly shot down as all weather employees who took early retirement have had their positions backfilled. This tragedy was a pure act of nature, and there is nobody in the vast chain of responsible parties who has accountability for a fluke of nature that occurs at 1 AM.

Even for a spiritual man like me, there is no logical answer as to why 27 young girls followed tradition, happily went off to summer camp, and are now missing, presumably swept away by the angry water. There is no viable explanation by people of he cloth as to why Almighty God would allow such a natural disaster and loss of young life. We are all left to pray for those lost and for God to give their families the strength to get past this tragedy.

I mentioned in the title that this was a tragedy, but it is also a miracle. We may have lost 27 beautiful young members of the community, but there were over 700 girls and counselors at Camp Mystic on Saturday night. Twenty-seven deaths are catastrophic. What would we be calling 700 lost lives? Thank God we do not have to conjure up that descriptive adjective.

We will hear many stories of heroism, such as the young teenage counselor who used a rock to smash a window, freeing dozens of trapped campers and forming a human daisy chain to get them all to safety. We must remember the lost souls, but celebrate the lives of the survivors.

Camp Mystic has been hosting young girls to share faith, friendship, and fellowship for nearly 100 years, and this horrific event should not taint its legacy or its future. It has done so much good for thousands and did nothing wrong on this summer night. This was an act of God that we can question, but must accept as part of His master plan. Memorialize the tragedy and the loss, but be blessed in the beauty of the future.