My first text came at 8:18 pm. I had not even made it home from church tonight. The text was from a precious friend whose husband is a firefighter. He had been called to West. A fertilizer plant had exploded.

Since then the calls and texts have pored in.

From a friend whose son plays soccer with a boy from West, “Just heard from our friends- they were at church and she said that is what saved them. Their house was destroyed.”

From another friend, “My dad is headed out there…”

And yet another friend, “My daughter’s husband is an EMT. He went in to help.”

From my sister who works at an area hospital, “This is the worst I have ever seen and I know it is not over.”

And yet another.

And yet another.

And yet another.

It is at times like these when the devil would love nothing more than for us to feel powerless. Although we know the power of prayer, the devil tempts us to feel we should be doing more. That our prayers are somehow insufficient. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

Tonight in Bible study we talked about confession. This might seem like an odd topic for me to bring up on this blog in the midst of the horrible crisis in West. And for many, regardless of what’s going on in the world around us, the thought of confession leaves us squirming in our seat, frantically searching for a quick getaway. That’s because we tend to think only about confessing our sin, but what if we were confessing something different?

If you look in Webster’s Dictionary, you’ll actually find four definitions for confess:

1. to acknowledge or avow (a fault, crime, misdeed, weakness, etc.) by way of revelation
2. to own or admit as true
3. to declare or acknowledge one’s sins, especially to God or a priest in order to obtain absolution
4. to acknowledge one’s belief or faith in; declare adherence to