Father’s Day 2008 wasn’t quite what any of us had been planning, but it’s still gone pretty well. After finishing a tasty breakfast that Becky made for me, we spent most of the morning and afternoon cleaning up the basement - washing things down with a bleach solution, sweeping up dirt and grime, repacking boxes that had gotten wet, scraping peeling paint off the walls, and starting to repaint. Slowly it’s coming back together.

Tonight we went out to Chili’s for supper, and while the food was quite tasty, it was weird to have it served on paper plates and in plastic cups with plastic utensils. With all of Cedar Rapids still on a water conservation plan, though, everyone in the city is doing something similar. Thankfully they were able to get a second water pumping station back online today, so the risk of totally losing water has lessened considerably, and the restrictions on water use have eased a bit. People are quite happy they can take showers once again.

By tomorrow night or Tuesday at the latest we should have stuff mostly put back together and have it feel more like “normal” at home; it’ll probably be the end of the week before the river has receded and we can see how many roads will need repaired before they can be used again. It will be nice to have the bridges back open, though; if they are all closed for too much longer it will become quite difficult to bring in trucks of supplies to restock the stores. But I think it’s going to turn out OK.

It will be a long rebuilding process for Cedar Rapids. It won’t be weeks or months; it’ll be years. There are thousands of houses to repair or demolish and rebuild; hundreds of businesses that have been severely damaged, bridges and roads that have been totally washed away; the heart of the city decimated by a deluge the scale of which we have never before seen. But the sunshine gives us hope - an internal assurance that the sorrow now measured by muddy waterlines on painted siding will be eventually superseded by the joy of new buildings, fresh paint, and restored community. Through it all, we hope and trust that God is good. And tomorrow morning we will find new mercies.