Storms

Hurricane Irene has started me thinking about past storms in my life. I was in a typhoon when I was stationed on Guam. I was in a couple of hurricanes in Florida. I remember a gully washer in Guam where I was stuck at a traffic light in my little VW and a news photographer caught my picture, with water up to my bumper.  That was a wild time. (the next morning, there were dead frogs all over the roads, bellies up and legs in rigamortis - weirdly amusing)

I remember the EYE OF THE STORM as being the weirdest part.  Here we had just sat through howling winds, rain, things blowing around outside and hitting the walls of my home, or breaking windows and other sorts of fearful things. THEN there was QUIET. Not just quiet.  Eerie silence, deafening in its own right. And the thing we were waiting for was the OTHER SIDE OF THE STORM to arrive. And it did, with the same fury the first side had.

The quiet before the storm has become cliche  but is very real. There is a quiet before every storm and we KNOW that the storm is going to hit. We don't know when but we do know.

Life has its storms and it also has its quiet. That deafeningly silent time when you can wait and...prepare.

I have been thinking about how I get complacent in the eye of the storm. Or in the quiet before the first side of the storm hits. I know from experience and observation that in this fallen world, storms are brewing constantly. BUT I have also learned that I don't need to FEAR the storm.  But neither should I lapse into complacency. There is always preparation to be done.

In Guam, we taped windows. put all objects inside that could fly around and damage something. We stocked food and water and candles for that inevitable power failure. We prepared as best we knew, as we were instructed. In Florida, I was hustled into a building with a few hundred other Navy women and waited out Hurricane Frederick in a darkened hot crowded building with too much estrogen in it. (I think being OUT in the hurricane might have been preferable - just kidding)  But we prepared ourselves.

For the storms of life - I prepare by taking shelter in my Savior. By sealing the leaks in the windows of my soul. By taking in the food and water of the Word. By taking all the precautions that my Savior has given. By following all of the instructions ahead of time from His Word.

But even when I have failed to take all the necessary and commanded precautions, He allows the eye to pass. Where a quiet exists and allows a chance to make some adjustments, to embrace His instructions, to trust that He is in the storm and knows what I need. And then to wait out the rest of the storm in His lap, sharing HIS power because mine has gone, knowing that His provisions are all around me, no matter how long the storm lasts.

Isaiah 25:4 - "For Thou hast been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; For the breath of the ruthless is like a rain storm against a wall."

I want the hurricanes of life find me prepared in Him.

Wishing you good storm preparations and happy times in the Savior, janet