Early on in my Galveston relief trip with a group of graduate students from the Midwest, I found that dramatic (and miraculous) stories of Hurricane Ike were numerous. Stories of waiting on a home's second story for a dump truck to come to the rescue. Accounts of four to twelve feet of water covering the entire island. Bizarre sights of washers and dryers appearing on street corners and boats being stranded in the lanes of a boulevard.

One particular story told by the pastor of our partnering church caught my attention. He had an old guitar that he bought when he first began to learn how to play. It wasn't really much of guitar, but it was the instrument he cut his teeth on. Upon returning to his home after the storm had passed, he found several feet of water and his home's contents ruined. Filled with dismay at what had happened, he noticed an object bobbing about. Having weathered the most brutal of storms, his old guitar, buoyed by its plastic back, was floating along with the water's current. He fetched the guitar from the water, cleaned it carefully, and found that it had survived intact though its strings were rusted permanently in place by the salty water. However, a strum indicated that the instrument, though frozen by the saline, was still perfectly in tune. The guitar was indeed damaged and yet it was ready to play its song.

If you follow the stories written about Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, you'll see that there is no scarcity of references to the story of Noah being saved from the biblical flood. It is natural for people to turn to this story for consolation when they have experienced such devastation. It is an account of utter destruction, a solitary family being saved from the swirling waters around them, and a promise of redemption for all humanity. The flood swept away everything in it's path, and yet the rainbow of redemption was painted on the sky overhead.

Oh, how we are often inundated with pain and suffering, not sure the waters will ever recede. Yet, God reminds us that these trials are not the end of the story. The battered city of Galveston is beginning to see signs of restoration. The neighborhoods that before would have shunned mission outreach into their communities now welcome relief workers as well as home group Bible study leaders. Some high school kids are considering going to college in New Orleans because they feel they have something to offer those struggling there. Congregations are bonded by an otherworldly tie that those of us who have been high and dry don't understand.

It is mysterious how God, in salvaging people from life's worst storms, can build something greater into their lives. Precious instruments are kept afloat. And though they may bear the scars of a chaotic adventure, they are still set in tune.