Through the Storms of Life

In the same week that she was learning about building a life on the Rock
and not the sands of the world,
she repeated the oft said 'because storms come and rattle our lives and shake our souls. 
If we are anchored to the Rock, we may shift and sway but remain firmly grounded,
but if not, we fall like a house built on sand,' when I asked the simple why.

In that very week, after her second day with lesson 1, the very ground we stood upon shook.  The quake rattled the house, made the walls sway, and the floor move like a ship at sea. 

She, a pale shade, turned to me for answers.

I looked up oddly at the walls, felt the motion under toe, and wondered, could this be an earthquake?  I've felt one before, many years ago.  I was her age, running to my momma, asking, trying to understand why this ground shook.

Then, two mornings later, the sky darkened and distant storms gathered clouds in our sky and rained down water sheets.  Thunder growled from the sky for an hour, as winds hissed through the air.  Through this, she played on with sister and brothers.  Undisturbed.  Trusting.  She's lived through many of these small storms.

They've taught her to trust and know it will work to good in His hands. 

On the eve of the hurricane approach, we travel to the park.  A planned, last outing with friends who will be gone for over a month.  A time of rest and laughter.  She spun and danced through the woods, chatted with her friend, and drank in the beauty of creation. 

Later, after dinner, a short dip in the pool deemed necessary before our indoor confinement as the hurricane passes through our skies.  She jumped, splashed, and pretended to walk the plank with her brother.  While laughter, antics, and jokes called from the waters, skies turned dark with preliminary storm clouds, foreshadows of the approaching hurricane.  We called them out.

Talk in the van turned to the sky where only an hour before they had found dolphins and swordfish sketched by wispy clouds.

Entering the local gas station, we scanned the pumps.  Not one was available.  Cones blocked entrances and pumps were covered in plastic.  The station was out of gas.  We traveled onward.  Another station crowded, but working.  Slowly pumps flowed.  We waited our turn, and silently watched the scene.  Twenty minutes later, tank full, we traveled home to our cocoon refuge for the winds and rains to come.

She watched as we prepared the house, listened to the forecast, and heeded the advice.  She knows we have done all we can to prepare, but the storms will still come.  She has listened as we explained this storm is different, more fierce, and we don't know how bad it will be when it arrives.  Now, she waits, as we all do in our corner of the world, for the approaching winds, driving rains, and potential damage.

Is not this the way with life?  Calm skies followed by severe storms.  The smaller storms teaching us to trust, to cling to the Rock, and to reach far down to our foundations as the earth trembles and hurricane winds begin to blow.