Tracking Storms

We all have our limits.  We have boundaries beyond which we are not comfortable.  We want things to stay manageable.  It is more comfortable to have a list of dos and don'ts with predictable outcomes, than to live with uncertainty and have to ride out life's storms moment by moment.  But life isn't just a set of rules where you can choose which way your life will go.  Just because you do what you believe to be right, you are not guaranteed smooth sailing.  Hurricanes happen.  Diseases happen.  Heartache is real.

But so is God.

 Like tracking a hurricane, we may be able to guess what direction our life is taking by reading the warning signs, but we really don't know for sure where landfall will be or how violently the winds will blow and the floods will rise, or what damages we'll be dealing with in the aftermath of a sudden storm.

I remember years ago when Hurricane Parkinson first threatened to blow through my life, and then when it began tracking straight for me, then when the super storm hit..........  I was helpless to change it's course and had no control over the damage inflicted.  It was the worst I had ever been through.  I was called upon to reach for courage I previously did not know I had.  There were days of defeat and despair as I tried to deal with rebuilding.  There were days when I didn't have the tools necessary for reconstruction.

But God was there.  And He still is.

The initial breach of that storm is long past but not a day goes by that I am not reminded of it.  I will never be the same.  But then, I think that's why God allowed this dreadful hurricane to hit me.  I have learned that God is sufficient when I have nothing.  I have learned that God is always with me when what I fear most is being left alone.  I have learned that God makes sense of what I see as senseless.  I have learned that though I don't have all the answers............  God does.  I have come to love Him more than I ever did before..................