Are you more ready for Hurricane Laura than you are for eternity? This is the question which flooded my heart and mind last week.
Native to Lafayette, Louisiana, all Acadiana folks, as well as those up and down the Gulf Coast, are familiar with the official dates between June 1st through Nov 30.
The Weather Channel calls it Hurricane Season. They have so narrowed down the approximate time from mid to late August to early September when the most powerful storms occur. As of last week, their predictions were spot on. One of the most powerful storms on record hit Louisiana’s coast.
Hurricane season brings up several memories.
I was approximately 11 years old when my father consoled me that the monstrous oak tree in our front yard would indeed not fall on my blue bedroom with the three, tall windows. He lovingly assured me it wouldn’t. He was right.
Days prior to a hurricane landing, dad seemed to busily secure household items around the house. Mom on the other hand scoured the fridge and freezers to make a mental list of items we could immediately make a feast with and what we would cook prior to losing electricity. Yesterday, I wondered why my lower back ached after doubling two types of muffin recipes, pull-apart chicken, and our favorite salmon dinner.
Mom is in glory now, where her faith has met her sight. I don’t know if I ever thanked her for all that prep work during hurricane season. Such a small memory brings a smile to my face.
After all, what would a hurricane season be without Jim Cantore reporting live for The Weather Channel? Jim faithfully obeys the orders of his boss on where to report for the particular hurricane. As rain heavily falls in the vicinity the storm will soon hit, the winds thrash against the building he is reporting next to. Time and time again I have watched in the convenience of numerous living rooms before the lights go out – wondering – if the cameraman and Jim were ever going to be blown away. Electricity and lights inevitably came back on and there was faithful Jim – reporting live, assessing the damage.
As a married woman, God spared our home during Hurricane Katrina. We evacuated to FL to stay with the tallest, blonde Marine family we personally know from TX. Dear Navy friends from O-H-I-O accompanied us. The epic stories during that time are still told and reminisced about today, with so many littles running around their Milton, FL house.
Hurricane Ivan had me leave FL with a toddler and being oh-so-pregnant with another Navy spouse and dear friend and her littles. We met up with our aviator husbands in TN where they transported various U.S. Navy aircrafts. Again, God spared our home when two very large oak trees came within feet of our first home we were about to sell.
Hurricanes. Storms. Perhaps you’re out west – wildfires.
What do these words conjure up in your heart?
Do they make you restless?
Are you able to maintain peace of mind in the midst of preparations?
Perhaps like some in the West you’ve had little to no time to prepare.
Do you run around feeling hopeless, helpless, and out of control?
Have you ever considered who made the storm? Who allowed it? He has a name. Actually many names.
He is the Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning and the End. The One True God. Creator God.
“Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him; the number of His years is unsearchable. For He draws up the drops of water; they distill rain from the mist; which the clouds pour down, they drip upon man abundantly. Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of His pavilion? Behold, He spreads His lightning about Him and He covers the depths of the sea.”
Job 36:26-31
“Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the LORD who makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers of rain, to everyone the vegetation of the field.”
Zechariah 10:1
Do these verses provide a sense of reverential awe or dreadful fear?
Perhaps God gives us storms in our lives to do just that – to show us, remind us, and quite literally have us get out of our homes and look UP as we ask ourselves –
WHO is it we are to fear vs WHAT we are to fear?
Biblical fear is showing reverence, a holy dread towards God. Having a fear of God simply put is trusting in The One who holds all things.
Let’s get back to storms…let’s be honest. No one likes storms! I don’t when we’re talking hurricane levels. However, being from south Louisiana, I must confess DO love a good storm. The rain, the wind, the trees blowing, the torrential downpour – it’s somehow calming to me. While stationed in SOCAL – sunny, southern California – one of the things I missed most was the rain!
The word storm is mentioned 22 times in the Bible. God saw fit to use “storm” as a noun, as well as show comparison in the form of a simile.
Scripture tells us He is the Creator of the storm, while also uses it to describe Himself as being a shelter in the midst of the storm.
“For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,”
Isaiah 25:4
Only a Sovereign God could be Creator and Shelter in the midst of the storm.
Oh the mysteries of God!
What storms have you been through in your life?
I’m not talking about Hurricane Season storms – Zeta, Laura, Ivan, Rita, Katrina. I mean the storm of LIFE.
What storm are you currently experiencing?
Could it be…
A relational storm
Financial storm
Marriage storm
Parent/child storm
Illness? Diagnosis?
Days prior to Hurricane Katrina, my husband and I stood in the living room of our Commanding Officer’s home in Mississippi. Days later, everything was dreadfully lost. Everything. That certainly constitutes a major life storm. Years earlier in Hurricane Ivan, a dear friend lost everything in Pensacola, FL. Right after Hurricane Laura passed here, the owner of a tree cutting business shared with me how one client of his lost everything she owned – twice.
Have you lost everything you own? Perhaps some of you had insurance, others none. Perhaps this is your first hurricane season as a newlywed or with your first child.
In the midst of our family’s hurricane household preparations, running errands all over Lafayette, waiting and watching the hurricane throughout the day, you my friend were on my mind and heart.
The Holy Spirit, who leads one into all truth, brought several verses to mind.
“For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
2 Cor 4:17-18
During hurricane preparation, were only the transient, seen things on your mind? Are you challenged day by day to focus on the eternal versus the temporal? For me? Some days are better than others. It’s a constant pull, down here! For Hurricane Laura, I walked around the house and couldn’t help but recall the vanity of life from Ecclesiastes Chapter 1.
Today I’m burdened….wondering, who out there has gone through hurricane preparedness year after year after year and not even pondered eternal preparedness for their soul?
Do you know someone? Could it be you?
My friend Amy hasn’t been through Hurricane Laura, Katrina nor Rita per say, but she weathered, endured, and came out a survivor and victorious of the CAT 5 storm of her life by God’s grace! She’s soon going to write about it.
“Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”
Psalm 139:12
Like any storm, the winds beat upon the family culture and structure of Amy’s home, her marriage, her children’s hearts, and her own heart as a follower of Jesus Christ. They knocked her down alright. For sometime, there was great darkness over her soul. Darkness comes with the storms of life, right?!
You might wonder – is God affected by the darkness we experience? Let this comfort you from His Word.
No follower of Jesus Christ is exempt from the storms of life or suffering. That’s the Gospel Truth. Our tailor-made storms are unique to us individually and they’re for our sanctification.
We serve a God who delights in redeeming, restoring, and bringing Resurrection Power to the darkest places. In His time. His way. For Amy, her greatest ordained tempest did not keep her down.
How about you? Who are you turning to in the midst of the disturbances in your life? There is a hope – it’s found in Jesus Christ. Will you turn to the Light of the World in your darkness?
“And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, that in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.”
Isaiah 42:16
Who do you know who could benefit from these encouraging words? Pass on some truth friend!
