The story is told of an elderly woman named Norena, who lived in southern Florida. When a hurricane hit that area, her home was one of many that was severely damaged. Norena received an insurance settlement, and the repair work began. However, when the money ran out, so did the contractor, leaving an unfinished home with no electricity. Norena lived in her dark, unfinished home – without power – for fifteen years.
You see, my brothers and sisters, the astonishing part of this story is that the hurricane was not Katrina but Andrew – a hurricane which struck in 1992. She had no heat in her home when the winter chills settled over southern Florida. She had no air conditioning when the mercury climbed into the 90’s and the humidity clung to 100 percent. She did not have one hot shower. Without money to finish the repairs, Norena just got by with a small lamp and a single burner.
Her neighbors did not seem to notice the absence of power in her home. Acting on a tip, one day, the mayor of the Miami-Dade area got involved. It only took a few hours of work by electrical contractor, Kent Crook, to return power to Norena’s house. CBS News reported that Norena planned to let the water get really hot, and then take her first “bubble bath” in a decade and a half. “It’s hard to describe having [the electricity]…to switch on,” Norena told reporters, “It’s overwhelming.”
Tell me, “How many Christian true believers have been living their entire lives without ever knowing what it is like to have the overwhelming Power of the Holy Spirit operating within them?” To be quite frank, I believe that some of us have had that Power turned off for so long, that we would not even recognize it if it came back to us!
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From a sermon by George Dillahunty, “The Power Transfer!” 7/28/08.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #7283]