Are you like me and feeling the fatigue of storms? This fatigue happens to us all even if the storm is not directly affecting you.
In the last month, our Hawaiian island chain has had two hurricane watches, preparations, warnings, some getting the worst and others of us being bypassed. Some of you are right in the middle of downpours, flooding, damage, waiting for news. And you are probably not reading this today.
I found that just waiting for the storm to arrive was about as exhausting as being in it! Waiting to hear if school will cancel or we will release children early. Waiting in the gas line. Or the grocery store. Taking a different road because of flooding or a fallen tree. Watching the rising dam that could flood the neighborhood.
We moved to a new house in between our two storms. So, for a few days there has been a different kind of storm in the house! I’ve sung the Veggie Tales song ‘Oh where is my hairbrush!’ looking for some misplaced item. I’ve looked at the walls and wondered what pictures need to fill them. I’m waiting for this new nest to fully feel like home.
In the waiting, another song has hummed in my head, “through it all, through it all, my eyes are on You.” There is no sweeter, safer place in the storm than being in His Presence. It doesn’t mean real damage doesn’t happen; it doesn’t mean hearts aren’t broken; it doesn’t mean we move through the mess without asking questions. But to fix our eyes on the Author and Finisher of our faith, is to watch the mysterious peace of God trickle down, turn into steady rain, and maybe a river that floods our souls.
The Lord said to Job:
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand?
Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm?
Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Job 38:4, 16, 25,34,35
Job’s response can be ours.
“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted…My ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you…therefore I repent…”
Sweet Ones, there is no storm on the outside or on the inside that our Powerful God doesn’t see. Nothing passes over, around or through us that God Almighty is not fully aware of and holds in his hands. May we repent of our desire to control, doubt God’s sovereignty, our whining and selfishness. May our response in the scary, uncontrollable, anxious, unplanned and planned for moments that tick through our lives be one of trust.
The words of Ted Loder from Guerrillas of Grace say it so well for me:
“Help me to accept you as you are, Lord: mysterious, hidden, strange, unknowable; and yet to trust that your madness is wiser than my timid, self-seeking sanities, and that nothing you’ve ever done has really been possible, so I may dare to be a little mad, too.”
May our trust today look a little mad today. And then watch the mad peace of God saturate our souls.
Sweet Cindy Gaskins