The Restored Podcast
We are living proof that God can and will restore any life, any marriage, any family that submits to His will. Join us as we share our testimony of how God can take a situation and restore it to His purpose.
The Restored Podcast
Our Response to Tragedy Should Be Love, Support, and Prayer
Devastating flash floods have swept through our home state, claiming over 100 lives and leaving countless families shattered in their wake. The sudden nature of these waters – rising 20 feet in a single hour during the night – created a catastrophic situation that has affected entire communities, particularly at Camp Mystic, where many young lives were tragically lost.
When faced with such overwhelming tragedy, both believers and non-believers inevitably ask the same question: Why? Why would this happen? Why would God allow it? While we don't claim to have perfect answers, we explore this profound question through the lens of faith. We discuss how we live in a fallen world where natural disasters occur, yet maintain that even amid devastating circumstances, there remains hope beyond our earthly suffering. For the Christian families affected, particularly those from Camp Mystic, their faith provides the comforting knowledge that this life isn't the end of their story.
The response to disaster reveals human nature at both its finest and its worst. Many rush to help, while others unfortunately exploit tragedy through scams or division. We emphasize the importance of discernment when donating to relief efforts and suggest trusted channels like local churches. Most importantly, we remind listeners that prayer remains the most powerful response available to everyone, regardless of financial means. We pray for comfort for grieving families, guidance for exhausted first responders, and wisdom for all involved in rebuilding lives and communities. Even in our darkest moments, like the young girls from Camp Mystic singing worship songs during evacuation, we can find the strength to maintain faith and praise. How might your prayers make a difference in someone's life today?
you are listening to the restored podcast with frank and darcy montgomery. Welcome back to another episode of the Restored Podcast. My name is Frank and I am here with my beautiful and lovely wife, Darcy. Hey, so what's the topic for today, Darcy?
Speaker 2:topic for today, darsh, how to handle the hard times that come, because we know they will come, and in this season right now, it is the floods that are currently affecting a large part of our home state.
Speaker 1:And the loss of so many. It's pretty devastating watching the news. The last count I saw was something right above 100 102 or 105.
Speaker 1:Deceased and still people missing. It seems like every time I open up Facebook or whatever any social media and I start scrolling, I run into a story of a couple that's missing, or a child that's missing, or a story of someone who has been found, somebody that lost their life trying to save another life. Yeah, you see communities coming together, but events like this also have a tendency to divide even more, and I think it's important that we stick to what's going on right now and what's going on right now are a lot of people grieving.
Speaker 1:They're grieving loss of a loved one, they're grieving loss of property. They're grieving pretty heavily right now, and the last thing that they need are a bunch of people coming on different platforms, different social media sites and starting to accuse a political party for this, a city government, and right now, I think, what the people that are affected by this? What they need more than anything is love, support and prayer.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And it's. A lot of people don't maybe know flash flooding and we're just audio so we can't play some of the videos that we've seen, but there are videos out there that show the Guadalupe River rising 20 feet in a matter of an hour, in a matter of an hour Right, and when that happens during the middle of the night, it's devastating.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:You can't see it coming and the way that it works is what we're dealing with here is flash flooding. What we're dealing with here is flash flooding. It's not to where you know. Rain just hovered over and you know, continued to pour and areas become flooded. This is because a lot of rain was dumped over a particular area.
Speaker 2:Very quickly, very quickly.
Speaker 1:Very quickly and that water has nowhere to go. It goes to the creek beds, it goes to rivers, it goes a lot of man-made channels that point that water to creeks and to lakes and to rivers. But what happens is those creeks and those rivers become overfilled and that water has to continue going somewhere and so it just continues and it's flash flooding. Happens very quick and it recedes very quick. But if you're caught in that flash flood, the currents are crazy, dangerous, can move vehicles, can move, houses can move tons.
Speaker 2:Parts of roads.
Speaker 1:Of what?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you asked me the other day. You asked me Do you remember what you asked me the other day? You asked me Do you remember what you asked me?
Speaker 2:I don't remember what I asked you. I've asked you a lot of questions.
Speaker 1:You asked me the other day why.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Why would God allow this to happen?
Speaker 2:I told you that I had to prevent myself from asking why? Because I don't understand.
Speaker 1:I don't think asking why is a bad question.
Speaker 2:Right, but when it's connected to you know, discouragement or you know something like that, it is and you know. A lot of times these situations cause people to lose faith, whereas they're actually. God uses everything for good, all the bad for good, and it is to build faith.
Speaker 1:But just because somebody asked why that isn't no, no, isn't bad, no, um, and the simple answer to that is I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know there's. You look to scripture and I think there's going to be a ton of these things that we want to know why they were allowed to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This is my own personal opinion, but I think A the simple answer to why is I don't know and we're not supposed to know. I don't know and we're not.
Speaker 1:Not supposed to know I don't think we'll get an answer, but my answer to that, if I had to give an answer, more than I don't know, my answer would be we live in a fallen world. Right, we live in a physical world, our earth, our globe. It was affected by the fall of man as well. When Adam and Eve ate off the tree of good and evil, of knowledge and sin entered into the world, it didn't just enter into mankind, it entered into the physical world itself and our world is falling. Our world is not perfect, and so I think, I think that that's it. You know, we live in a fallen world, and in a fallen world Bad things happen. But, like you said, even though bad things happen, those of us that believe in Christ, those of us that have a relationship with Him, know that our life on this earth isn't it Right. We are just stopping here on earth on our way to eternity, and so we have that hope.
Speaker 1:And we were watching a show last night and one of the commentators brought it up and I didn't think about it, but a lot of the media attention is on a specific camp in Kerrville, camp Mystic, camp in Kerrville, camp Mystic, and that's because that's where a good majority of the lives lost are from and those are the ones that we knew about from the very beginning and those are the ones that you know we've been tracking. Are they found yet? Are they, you know? Are they or have they passed away?
Speaker 1:And that camp is a Christian girls camp and if there's any good out of this, those families that are affected most likely are Christian Right, most likely have a relationship with God and, yes, satan can use this tragedy to tear that faith apart. But that's where we, as believers, we've got to come in and lift those families up in prayer, intercede for those families, for God to comfort them Instead of their faith being torn apart, for their faith to be strengthened, for the hope of them that they know that they will see their daughter again. And so I think we just pray. What do we pray for? Like I just mentioned, we pray for comfort the families that are hurting. We pray for comfort for them. We pray for God to comfort them. We pray for them to turn to God for comfort, not to turn to something else that their flesh might desire.
Speaker 2:For comfort we pray for peace and you know in those families that they find peace and you know in those families that they find peace and we pray for those first responders and those rescuers that they get peace because they're out there in all of that they're seeing some of the worst things you could see and you know we pray that they get comfort and peace before they go back home to their families and that it's not a years-long thing that they have to struggle with.
Speaker 1:I think we also pray for guidance Right For the first responders that are still out there. You know, you pray for the miracle that there's still somebody hanging on in a tree or somebody that's trapped beneath some of the rubble, that are still alive. You pray for that miracle. So you pray for guidance if there are any that are out there that the first responders will find them, but you just pray for guidance for them to find everyone Right, to give those families some peace. I can't imagine losing a child, neither.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine losing a child, neither.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine losing a child and not finding the body, Not being able to say your last goodbyes on this earth, and all of that. So you pray for the guidance, you pray for strength and you pray for God's provisions for everybody that's affected. Lots and lots of money to for these people to get their lives back. Some of them have to completely rebuild their house. People lost vehicles. I can only imagine the way the insurance industry is, the fight that's ahead of a lot of people you know trying to get, you know, the finances to rebuild, to replace.
Speaker 2:You also pray against the attacks of the enemy in this situation. There have already been horrible things said. People have come out against these families and there have even been scammers that have come out against these families, and there have even been scammers that have come out and you just pray against those attacks of the enemy, that, even though he may form those weapons, they do not prosper over these families.
Speaker 1:And that's another thing. Whenever tragedies happen like this, you have people that take advantage of kind hearts and everybody wants to know how can I help, what can I do to help? And for the vast majority of people that aren't in that area, the way that they can help is by giving financially.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But then you know, you hear all of these stories of, you know, large companies. Not, you know very little of what's given actually makes it to the affected area. You have people saying that, oh, we're going to do this, you know we're going to give this portion of sales to help. Okay, a, when they give their portion of sales to help, where's that portion going? Who are they giving it to to help? And then, you know, the question even arises are they, are they giving that, or is that just a sales tactic to boost sales and take advantage?
Speaker 2:And that's where we come in and we pray for wisdom. We pray for discernment. Before we give of our time, give of our finances, give of resources and supplies, you have to use discernment and pray for wisdom.
Speaker 1:My recommendation would be not to any one particular person or charity at this moment. If you have a, if your church is raising money for it, I would say give to your church and trust your church leadership and their discernment that the money that you give through your local church, that your local church leaders will, you know, put that money where it's needed best. You know put that money where it's needed best. But first and foremost, I would say, right now, definitely still in the search and rescue process, still trying to find people, pray about it a little longer. The finances are going to come.
Speaker 2:Right, but if you can't, give.
Speaker 1:I don't want people to feel like, well, I want to help, but I can't give Pray. Pray for these people. Everybody can give a prayer. Yes, Not everybody can give financially. And prayer is so powerful. Prayer works. We've seen it firsthand in our lives. I am still living today, I have no doubt because of the prayers of my mother.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:There are many times that I probably could have and should have lost my life, but prayers changed it. Could have and should have lost my life, but prayer has changed it. You know, our marriage, through your prayers and through the prayers of others, has been restored. There's countless, countless testimonies out there that you can go find of how prayer changes things. God tells us through His Word in moments like this that we are to rejoice, that we are to praise Him, and it's really hard to praise him with so much hurt.
Speaker 2:Yes, but we know that he turns everything bad for good. There is good coming from this, there is a reason for this, and we just need to have that faith and continue to pray and seek him and joy will come.
Speaker 1:You know I sent that video to you the other day of the girls from Camp Mystic being evacuated out of the camp.
Speaker 2:Singing songs of praise.
Speaker 1:And they were singing worship songs on the bus worship songs on the bus and the person who was recording it was recording all of the devastation that they were driving through and you can only imagine what those young kids went through the previous 24 hours before that was recorded. Some of them, you know might have come to grips with eternity during that time frame. Some of them you know, might have lost a friend, a loved one, might have lost a friend, a loved one, but yet they were still praising God at the end of that.
Speaker 1:And I think that's key for us is to have that childlike faith. To have that childlike faith and to worship God, no matter what is going on in our lives. We worship Him through the good, we worship Him through the bad. God is still good even when bad things happen. Yes, and so I just want to end this in prayer. Okay, if you have anything else that you want to talk about? No, so, father, we come before you and we just we thank you, we thank you for being who you are and we thank you for loving us, and we thank you for you sending your son so that we could live and so that we could have eternal life and that we could spend eternity with you. Father, I pray for every life touched by these floods. I pray that you would bring comfort and that you would bring peace to them, that you would bring peace to them Whether they're grieving the loss of a loved one, of a child, or they're grieving loss of property, their lives being upended. I pray that your Holy Spirit would come down and you would comfort, that they would find peace in your love. God, I pray for every first responder. I pray that you would guide them where they need to go, where they need to look. I pray that you would protect them and that you would keep them safe and I pray that you would comfort them and give them peace, father, because they are seeing devastation, probably like they have never seen before, and we all know the attacks of the enemy, the darts that he'll throw, and those images will be ingrained in their brains and I just pray, father, that you would change those images of sorrow and hurt, that you would change those images to joy and happiness. You would change those images to joy and happiness. Father, for those that aren't directly involved, I pray that you would bring comfort to them and that you would bring peace to them and let them know that you are still God and you are still in control, no matter what is happening, and that there will be good Father coming of it.
Speaker 1:I pray for that restoration. I pray for coming of it. I pray for that restoration. I pray for restoration of families. I pray for restoration of property. I pray for restoration of Camp Mystic, father, so that everybody can rebuild and have the finances, have the resources that they need to do so, and that life would get back to somewhat of a normalcy for them here on this earth. But, father, most of all, I pray that people would turn to you out of this. I pray that people would turn to you and come to find you and that lives would be saved and that they know that this earth, this is not it. We have an eternity with you, father, and we give you all of the praise, all of the glory. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen Thank you.