Sometimes He calms the storm...

You know what the clouds look like far away when a storm is brewing? Just a kind of faint darkness, no thunder, no lightening. But you know it's coming.

That's what my life feels like right now. I know it's coming, and I'm bracing myself for it.

I know that storms aren't all bad though. You know how we like to say rain is just God's way of washing everything clean? Well, sometimes you wash things on gentle cycle...and sometimes you wash them on heavy duty!

That's the way I see a storm. Sometimes, to get things clean, you have to really scrub them. Like, elbow grease, scrub. But after you are done with that steel wool pad on the bottom of that pan, doesn't it look good? Sure, it was difficult when you were scrubbing. The muscles in your arm were starting to fatigue. You may have even broke out in a sweat. You know it needed to be done, you couldn't not do it. It would be much worse to just leave it that way, continually getting worse. Thus making your scrubbing job harder later. Whew, you're done! Doesn't it look good shining like new?! The hard work was worth it! Now, you can hang it on that cool cookware rack over your center island, instead of down in the cabinet where it's been.

Have you noticed how after a really good storm, there are little tree limbs all over the place? That's God's Heavy Duty scrub cycle for His world. Those twigs and leaves and branches needed to come off, they just needed some help. Most likely, they were probably already no good for the tree, or they were about to be no good for it, so they were "pruned" away for the good of the whole tree.

Knowing that has helped me look forward to the storms that will inevitably come. I hope my analogy has helped you too. It will be difficult. There will be days when I'll want to just take cover and come out when it's over. But, if I focus on the end result - that I'll be better when it's over - I'll make it through just fine.

There is a hymn that pretty much sums it up perfectly:

I REALIZE THAT SOMETIMES IN THIS LIFE WE'RE GONNA BE TOSSED BY THE WAVES AND CURRENTS THAT SEEM SO FIERCE, BUT IN THE WORD OF GOD I-I-I'VE GOT AN ANCHOR AND IT KEEPS ME STEADFAST & UNMOVABLE DESPITE THE TIDES. BUT IF THE STORMS DON'T CEASE. And JUST IN CASE THE WIND KEEPS ON BLOWING IN MY LIFE MY SOUL HAS BEEN ANCHORED IN THE LORD

Commit it to memory, for those days when you can "see" the dark clouds in the distance.