Becoming New

For Wilshire Baptist Church

“What will we become?” That’s the big question being posed in Port Aransas, Texas nine months after Hurricane Harvey pounded the island community with 132 mile per hour winds and more than a foot of rain. And it’s an existential question we all face whether we realize it or not.

I’ve been following the news in Port Aransas because I wrote one novel set in the town and was three-fourths finished with a second book when Harvey hit. My characters are fictional but they live in a real time and place so they necessarily must react in real ways to real events around them, and like they’re real counterparts, they’re asking themselves, “What will we become?”

This was fresh on my mind this morning after reading a long article about Port Aransas in The Dallas Morning News last night. The short version is that Port Aransas was a small, quirky tourist town known for its low-key, laid-back vibe. It wasn’t the place to go for trendy tourist resorts and restaurants; it had its own local hangouts. The beaches weren’t gorgeous but were family friendly and durable. It wasn’t the go-to place for a spring break blowout, but every late April the island hosted the largest annual sand-sculpting event in the nation.

And then came Hurricane Harvey, which damaged 80 percent of the homes and businesses. In the aftermath the questions in the minds of local citizens have piled up as high as the debris being hauled to the landfills: Who will stay and who will leave? Who will come back and who has moved on? Will we rebuild a new version of our quirky old self or something entirely different? In other words, “What will we become?”

This is a question most of us will face in one way or another when we experience a major loss or change. I haven’t yet read Tim Krause’s book, “Finding Theo,” but I know from interviews and conversations that the question is one Theo and his family have faced and continue to face: “What will we become?”

My own family churned through that question years ago when my sister died. I faced the question again through job changes that pulled me away from my start as a newspaper reporter and pushed me down the winding road of organizational communications. And 10 years ago when my marriage of 25 years was ended by death, I asked myself many times: “What will I become?”

A lot of the answer to that question depends on how we answer a related question: “What will we do with this?” Too often we ask, “Why did God do this?” when the better question is, “What will God do through this?” and even, “What does God want us to do with this?” Those questions hint at an opportunity to work with God in making something new out of what once was.

I didn’t wake up this morning planning to write about this. I was sitting at the back porch table, keyboard to keyboard with LeAnn as she worked on her projects and I stared dully at bits and pieces of ideas for a blog. And then a bird dove into the muddy birdbath in the yard and I decided it was time for fresh water. That led to watering the flowerbeds, and when I got to the back edge of the yard I turned around and looked back at a home and a life that I didn’t have a decade ago and I’m still marveling at.

It’s still all new to me and it’s OK. I’ve changed and yet I’ve remained the same; I’ve been made new because of the change and along with it. I’ve learned not to ask God “Why?” but to ask, “What kind of new will I become out of this?”

It’s happened to me, it’s happening in Port Aransas. It’s happening with my fictional characters and with my real friends and loved ones. It’s happening to you whether you know it or not. Sometimes it comes with the hurricane and sometimes with a little gust of wind. We’re all becoming new.