Storms... of Weather and of Life

 As I am writing this blog, my husband is glued to the television to hear the endless reports of the gigantic Hurricane Irene ripping up the East Coast, spawning tornadoes and torrents, destruction and devastation. I've never been in a hurricane. I hope I never have to see one up close and personal.

As a child I lived in the South where tornadoes happen every year. Our home was in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I never experienced a tornado there. I remember someone taking us for a ride in the "country" around there after tornadoes had passed through. I saw old houses with tin roofs gone, barns in splinters, and trees uprooted. I was told tornadoes had not hit our town because it sat on a rise of land that seemed to make the tornadoes jump right over us. I was glad for that information; however, it didn't really comfort me during thunder storms when the lightning was striking all around us and the crash of the thunder was horrendous. 

Many years later when I lived in Anchorage, Alaska  where tornadoes are hardly ever a reality, a tiny twister did indeed twist part of the tin roof off our home and deposit it in someone's yard about a block away. That was scary. Our pastor and other friends arrived the next morning to help Dave cover the hole with tarps and secure it down. It remained like that for several years, until after Dave died and I had another metal roof put in over the hole.


I've been through a couple of dust storms, the first one being covered in this blog. (See Dust Storm...a Story, May). The other one was in the '60's when Dave and I were on a road trip through Arizona. (They must have a lot of them in Arizona. I just saw an aerial image on television of Phoenix, Arizona buried in this rolling cloud of dust.) On our road trip, the traffic was slowed down to a crawl out in the desert where normally people would be traveling over eighty miles per hour. Heavy rain was converting the thick dust into thick mud. For awhile, we were creeping alongside a camp trailer being towed. Thick mud was sliding down the side of it. Our line of traffic was stopped for a few minutes, and our big, heavy car was jumping up and down, so strong was the wind.

The worst storms I've ever experienced, though, have been Storms of Life. I know everyone experiences them. Times of sickness... Pressures from a job or other situation... Concern over a wayward teenager...  Or your husband gets put in jail... Or ... dies. Those are the times when you have to force yourself to do each task that comes to hand. You can't think clearly. You can't seem to accomplish anything. You feel you are carrying the whole world on your shoulders, and the weight of it is horrendous.


We need Someone on Whom we can depend when storms come, in Whom we can rest. We need Someone Who is able to take care of any kind of problem that arises, Someone we can totally trust, no matter what. I remember as a child listening to the rain drumming on the roof of our house in Pine Bluff. I liked that sound if I was snuggling under the cover next to Aunt Berl or Mama. I felt so warm and safe. I didn't have nightmares; I knew the problems that might arise would be dealt with by the adults in my life, and I could trust them to take care of me.

I feel the same way about Jesus, right now while I'm old and gray-headed. There are any number of disasters that could befall me these days. I may not yet have gone through all the storms the Lord will allow in my lifetime. I don't know what is coming around the bend in the road. I don't worry about it, though. I know the same Jesus Who walked out across a tossing sea to a tossing boat full of scared, shaky disciples and made everything calm down.

I know that whatever storms come my way, He will give me whatever help I need to cling to Him till He takes me right up to the place He has prepared for me... and "for all those who love His appearing..."

^{Romans 8:35}Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

 ³⁶As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

 ³⁷Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

 ³⁸For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

 ³⁹Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.