Day 7 - Where is our Power?

I love being the Athol Road Agrarian! I always wanted to homestead, to survive, to live in nature and according to its rhythms...

Well, today the rubber hits the road. We are in Day 7 of a major power outage in Central and Western Massachusetts. At one point 500,000 homes were without power. Now there are about 10,000 - and we are one of them.

We had the distinction of being in the final 64 "dark" homes in our town. National Grid has brought in crews from around the nation, and it still isn't enough. So, it makes you realize man's limitations. I have been discovering several of my own lately.

Yet, no matter my own deficiencies, this holiday episode has been just a confirmation to me of how delicately held our modern lifestyle is in America and the Western world.

Soon, we will all be facing the tough conditions that the masses in the "undeveloped" world have been living in for millenia. Just as at Babel, man has sought to build a society that could stand apart from God, and soon we will see the result of its failure on all fronts.

I don't have much more time left. I need to get some more wood, water, matches, candles, and a little grub to last us through the stormy, snowy weekend. We expect a foot throughout the day today and tomorrow morning with another storm to follow on Sunday.

This is the kind of stuff that I always imagined living in the New England woods, and although I am not really excited about it at the moment, I know that it is God's preparation for me and my family.

Does that mean we have to like the stiff medicine? I would say not, but I am thankful that our lives, both spiritual and physical, are in His hands. I am powerless, but I keep on keeping on. I know he will not forsake us!

We are supposed to be with family celebrating Christmas and singing in a performance of Robert Shaw's Many Moods of Christmas tomorrow. We were supposed to be there two days ago. But we can't leave our house without power to keep the utilities from freezing up over the next frigid week.

My family is really down about being stuck here and missing out on all the fun, especially my little girl. She keeps asking about the electricity and when can we go to Grandma's...

Last night she shared a children's story that she had heard in church one Sabbath. The moral of the story was that sometimes bad things happen to us and that we should trust in God because it means he has something better for us, even though we don't know the what or when.

I told her that is what having faith is all about, and if all our trials over this last week produced such an understanding in her, then it is all more than worth it, and I welcome more trials (as Peter says in the Bible), for they all work together for good...

But we are missing being with our family and friend desperately! Yet, we have to hold on to Jesus' promise to his disciples, "But Ye Shall Receive Power...!" Acts 1:8