Calm and Storm

As promised yesterday...some of the best of the embarrassing moments from the early blog days. I left out the one where I colored my roots with a scented marker. But the rest are just as story-worthy. Enjoy!

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This storm swirling through the Atlantic right now is something else, isn't it? They all are, really. Each storm with its unique name, path, and intensity swells up furiously from the calm, wreaks havoc, and then dissipates back into calm, leaving behind all the wreckage.

Living in the Midwest, of course, I have never been a firsthand witness to the terror of a hurricane in motion. I've seen tornadoes, and if you've been reading around here very long, you know I hate everything about those. Hurricanes and tropical storms, though, seem oh so much worse. For all of the devastation of a tornado, it's here and gone in a matter of moments. Living through days of an intense storm? I can't grasp that.

The first year Ryan and I were married, we took a Caribbean cruise, and we spent a day in the Bahamas. From what I can tell, the area where we went didn't sustain the bulk of the damage I've read about online, but neither was it entirely spared.

I remember the day we were there. We didn't have an excursion planned for that port, so we planned to find a beach and enjoy the day. Ryan tried to communicate to the bus driver that we wanted a public beach, and he dropped us off in what seemed a very remote spot, pointed down a narrow alley, and promised there would be a beach on the other side of the buildings.

To this day, I'm certain he sent us to private property, but I will say that it was absolutely delightful to spend an entire day on a deserted beach.

We set up our tripod and captured our day of fun. We sat in the sand and talked, splashed in the gorgeous clear waters, and appreciated every moment of our perfectly private beach find.

As the afternoon went on, we began to notice some darker clouds gathering on the horizon, so we packed up our bags, found a bus, and managed to get back to our ship before the skies opened and rain fell hard.

But that rainstorm was nothing in comparison to what the area has seen this week. It wasn't just a dark cloud or two. It was a swirling, devastating storm.

It's hard for me to imagine, when I look at these perfectly crafted photos, that these same waters could become so angry and the winds could blow so fiercly.

It's true of our hearts, too. (Not just Ryan's and mine - yours too!) We can be in the calm of what seems the perfect moment, and suddenly we see some dark clouds. And maybe sometimes the storm that blows up in our faces is full and angry and overwhelming. And it may last for days. Weeks. Longer.

When it subsides, it may leave behind a mess of damage that looks far too big to ever clean and organize.

When those moments come for me, I have to remind myself that God has shown in the past that He can help me survive the storm and clean up the wreckage it leaves behind. That one day the waters will be calm again, and blue skies will appear. It may not be soon, but it will happen.

The last picture I shared in this post is one that Ryan and I had printed on a canvas and it hangs in our bedroom. As I pray for those in the path of this swirling storm, asking God to sustain them in the angry winds, I am also praying for those facing heart-storms. (And praying over some of my own!) If you're in the heart-storm group today, I hope you'll find a measure of hope in knowing the storms do pass. And in the grace of the Lord, we will be stronger for going through them.