The Glory in The Aftermath

We had quite a storm blow through here yesterday afternoon. However, once it passed, except for the downed tree limbs and other debris cluttering the streets, you would never know we had anything more than a little rain.

We know a little something about storms here on the Gulf Coast. This one was mild in comparison, but driving through wind blowing horizontally, as I found myself doing after church yesterday, is scary. No doubt!

Yet storms, for all the damage they produce, also bring a cleansing we sometimes didn't know we needed. Take for instance, pollen. It's been bad around here. Yesterday's storm aided in clearing some of that up and washed away a nuisance that cause so many all kinds of respiratory difficulties.

I was thrilled to see the storm blow in. I have new fruit trees and flowering plants I placed in the ground this year, and a storm brings with it nutrients a watering hose cannot supply. Everything seems to grow more prolifically after a good rain shower, something we often forget.

Last year seemed full of storms for me, personally. From May to October storms were brewing in my world, but then the rains came. August, December and 2019 have brought cleansing rains to my soul.

You know, there's only one place I want to be when a storm comes, and it's home where I feel safe. I can hunker down with the best of them with Beau by my side, come what may, and after the initial shock of the unexpected storms of 2018, that's exactly what I did. I hunkered down and sheltered in place.

"For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock." Psalm 27:5

This is where I ended up seeking shelter from the storm raging around and inside me. I sought shelter in God Most High. I confess, I waited much longer than I should have to seek his protection, but when I did, I couldn't get enough. Hiddenness became my closest friend. My circle grew tighter in that season. It had to in order to weather the storm in a way that was both productive and restorative to places in me that had been battered and tossed by the winds of the previous months.

Storms can be deceptive. What we experience in the midst of them is often what we're left with in the aftermath - fear, destruction, carnage... But friend, sometimes it takes a storm for new life to emerge. Talk to anyone who has been through a storm that caused immense damage to their property. They would never want to relive that experience, but from it, they were able to make some changes, sometimes much needed changes, and had the joy of choosing something new and different that they would not have done before the storm occurred. This, too, has been my experience.

There are relationships now much deeper and richer because of those storms. I see many things differently, less critically, with more faith than before the storms came my way. I am more content and vigilant about what I've been called to do, and more determined than ever to let nothing stand in my way. I have an urgency to live my life to the fullest, increasing space and time for those who weathered the storm with me and provided the shelter of their friendship, prayers and counsel.

I am especially grateful, hope-filled and humbled by this life I get to live. Not that it took a storm for any of this to unfold, but maybe it took the storm to wash away the haze that kept me from seeing what I couldn't see before. Maybe that's the real power of the storm, not the damage it produces, but the glory in the aftermath.

You came near when I called on you; you said, "Do not fear!" You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life. Lamentations 3:57-58