What's really important...

Sometimes we need to set down and think what is really important in our lives. With this weekend's wild weather, power outages, and new arrivals the first of the week it really makes you think about what is important.
Lets start with Saturday, it was a lazy day around our house. Sleep in, since we did not have anything pressing like the previous twelve Saturdays. Got to play with the kids, babysat a one year old for some friends, made brunch for the boys (thats what you call it at 11:00AM), stripped and refinished a guitar body while the owner was out of town, got to go to a guitar shop while they were making $5,000 guitars and pretty much had a lazy day till 5:35 PM while I was setting down watching a little TV when the power went out. Dinner plans had to change as I heard the fire department wail off to the north. As information came in we came to realize that 6 miles north a tornado had tore down some power lines and had impacted a house or two. At that point, the important things start to weigh on you. Not stuff like, I can't watch the end of the game, or I can't turn on lights, or make dinner. No the important parts like, is everyone OK? You see I have people that live up that way, so in trying to run them down and find out if they are OK (and they were!!) you then begin to find out that the storm it is impacting a whole lot more than you initially realized. We knew others who lived in the path of the storm, some who had family that had not been heard from, and others that we were not sure about. And at that point in time you begin to see what is really important...
... as I got to work today, the cars in the parking lot look like someone had taken a hammer and were swatting flies all over them, the ground is pock marked like some monsters where playing golf in the front yard, and the storm wreckage was strewn all over the place in the aftermath of the storm along the road to work.
But...
Even though our power was off for 24 hours, church services were cancelled, and our weekend was not what it was planned to be, the important things in life were brought to the forefront.

And this morning on May the 12th, just after 7:00, at the same place where the injured were treated this weekend following the raging storm, new life was brought into this world. I watched in awe as a new little person was taking her first breathes, opening her eyes and squeezing hands for the first time and realized this, life is precious and is the most important thing.
Buildings can be rebuilt, cars can have dents removed, but the lives of people is something that can not easily be fixed or replaced. So today think about the things that are really important...