Take note world. You don’t need to wait for a devastating disaster to love. You don’t need to wait until your neighbors are drowning to reach across the color, religious, nationality, political boundaries. This world is suffering a different kind of storm, one far more dangerous than Harvey–a storm of hatred. Let’s refuse to let it break us.

There’s not much in the world I can truly say I hate. But I hate Harvey.

We have been sitting here for more hours than I can begin to count being brutally lashed by his seemingly never ending fury. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t scary…terrifying…at times, but we are among the lucky ones. We are safe and dry.

Harvey has taken so much from so many. Homes, lives, hopes, jobs–all washed into the Gulf of Mexico by his relentless anger. As the horrifying images and desperate needs flash across my screen in endless and quick succession, I sit here with tears in my eyes. Where do you begin? I have never felt so helpless. My neighbors are in dire straits and I can’t do anything but pray. It’s a terrible feeling.

Pregnant women and their toddlers stuck on roofs waiting hours upon hours for help. A friend with seven feet of water in her home swimming for her life to a rescue boat. An elderly couple trapped in their attic with rising water. A man drowned as he clung desperately to a shoping cart return in a parking lot.

Thousands stranded. Thousands homeless. Hundreds in need of rescue. No water. No food. No end in sight.

My own church (Church Project) has taken in tons of evacuees with even more buses on the way, and we (my family) can’t even get out to help them because of devastating flooding and road closures all around us. It’s a feeling of hopeless, helpless heartbreak that I can’t even begin to express.

My heart is bleeding.

Yet, in the deluge, there is also something incredibly beautiful emerging. You see, Harvey has washed away something else–hatred.

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