Stormy Weather

It's stormy tonight. Really stormy. We get some crazy severe weather here on the north Oregon Coast in the wintertime. We often laugh when we see the national news and they are making a big fuss about 'high winds' in New York or the Southeast or 'heavy rain' Texas or the Midwest. We have gale force winds, hurricane weather and marine storms almost weekly here that dwarfs the 'severe weather' that makes headlines elsewhere. I guess the talking heads don't care about the little ole' Oregon Coast!

A couple of years ago, I bought a portable generator because power outages are a way of life here in the winter. It's saved our bacon a couple of times. We keep a fresh supply of candles, flashlights and batteries handy at all times. I even have battery backups on our TV, entertainment center and computer...heaven forbid we miss an episode of 'The Office' or (I cringe at the very thought of this one) go more than an hour without updating our facebook status! Now, we have iPhones, so as long as there is a cell network (which actually went down during the big storm last December), we will always have our umbilical cords firmly attached to cyberspace..."Honey, the power's out...come check out this YouTube video!"

The funny thing about storms is that, while they are truly frightening displays of nature's power that make you pretty nervous while they are flexing their muscles - no matter how bad they are they always blow themselves out and pass. Camille and I were actually fortunate enough to be gone at a friend's wedding in the Caribbean during the monster storm that hit here last December. I remember driving back home from the Portland airport and the closer we got to the coast, the more it looked like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of trees were uprooted everywhere. Homes were destroyed. Cars were trashed. They cleared the street to our house just a couple of days before we got back. Before that, you couldn't drive within blocks of our house. Our neighbor's house had been flattened by a huge evergreen. Her truck had been smashed by another. One of the three gigantic evergreens in our back yard had fallen and missed another neighbor's house by inches. We had to cut the other two down before the next storm pushed them over onto our house. But even with all the devastation wrought by the storm, as we drove home the sky was blue, the winds calm and the seas serene. The storm was over, and except for the destruction in it's wake, it was hard to believe that there had ever been a storm.

Another funny (or not so funny) thing about storms is that while they never last forever, and good weather wins out eventually - there's always another one just around the corner. I've spent countless hours trying to find my garbage can or get the neighbor's birdbath off of the roof after a storm...the sun is out and the wind is calm and it seems as if nature will never be angry with the Oregon Coast again. The whole time I am almost in a state of disbelief that the weather will ever do this do us again. "That was a freak of nature," you think, "I'm glad that's not gonna happen again!" But it always does.

Some of my favorite people are currently experiencing the hardest times of their lives. They are in the middle of gale force storms. Not the kind of storms that knock over trees or sink ships. Their storms are things like cancer, unemployment, economic hardship, relationship woes...problems that you would gladly trade for a good old-fashioned hurricane. These are responsible, hard-working, God-fearing people I'm talking about. What did they ever do to deserve the twisters that are uprooting their lives? Well, one of the cold, hard facts of this life is that storms, both the Weather Channel kind and the 'I don't want to get out of bed today because life sucks' kind, are an inevitable, unavoidable part of living in this imperfect world. My neighbor didn't do anything to deserve that tree through her living room, and my uncle didn't do anything to deserve cancer.

I don't want to go into the whys and reasons that good people have to experience bad things. That's for a whole different conversation. I just want to point out something that I know a little about from personal experience. The storms of life can seem, at times, insurmountable. I've been there, where you want to stand up and yell for the wind and the waves just to take you...you're finished - there's no way out of this one. And you know what? You're right. There is no way out...for you. I know someone, however, who can literally command the storm to be still. Check out Mark 4:36-41 in the Bible. I talk a lot about the Creator and his awesome power. Well, that passage is a small example of just that. The cool thing, though (and I am speaking from very personal experience here), is that He has the same power to calm the storms in our lives. Like I said, why we have to walk through them in the first place is a topic for another discussion. The important point here is that we will go through them, and our Creator wants to hold our hand all the way through and help clean up the mess afterward. And His power over the storms of our lives is awesome.

And just like natural storms, there will always be another personal storm. A famous preacher once said that you are either going through a storm, coming out of one, or getting ready for the next one. That's life in an imperfect world, folks! Sounds hopeless, huh? Well, without the One who can guide us safely through the storms, it is. Personally, I'm not sweating the next storm. I've been through so many and seen His mighty power at work in my life while the winds and rain tried to blow me away...and guess what? I'm still standing. Not because I'm 'tough' or 'a fighter'. Because He took the brunt of the storm for me. He's done it for my friends and loved ones too. Are you going through a 'storm' right now? Is one on the horizon? Now would be a good time to hand the wheel of your ship over to the only Mariner who can see you safely through the gales. Me? By myself, I run the stupid ship up onto the rocks every time. Trust me, He's a way better sailor than you are. He wants to get you safely to calm waters. He knows the way. Just let Him steer.