Weathering the Storm

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And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who

called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.  To Him be dominion forever and ever. 

1 Peter 5:10-11

It’s been raining on the East Coast for 48 hours.  It’s cold and dreary, and all I want to do is call in sick to work, snuggle into bed, and watch 30 Rock while baking brownies.  It’s been raining for 48 hours.  That’s nothing to you Seattle folk who’ve grown accustomed  to a constant overcast sky.  But for this Louisiana girl, it seems like a lifetime.  The longer it rains, the more sullen I get.  It will neverrr stop, I whine.  I’ll neverrrr be able to go outside again.

I check the weather channel.  Tomorrow’s forecast?  63 degrees, sunny with a few clouds.  I shrug.  They never get that right.  I’ll bet it’s monsooning by tomorrow.  I guarantee the whole city will flood.

 I’m heading to a lakehouse in North Carolina this weekend so I switch the weather to NC’s forecast.  85 degrees, sunny all weekend.  Hah, I sneer.  That darned Noreaster will probably do a 180 and come back to haunt us this weekend.  There’s no end in sight to this mess.

And that’s when I catch myself.  Mid-complaint… I come to a screeching halt.  Why?  Because, right there, reflected in my complaints about the weather, I see my entire life.  When the storms of life come, I feel defeated.  When I enter a season of rain, I fear it will  never end.  I take a season of singleness as a lifetime of loneliness.  I take a season of unemployment as a lifetime of failure.  I take a season of illness as a resignation to a life of frailty.  I dig my muddy boots deeper and deeper into the mire of darkness, slowly letting the hope seep out of me with each new drop of rain.

Yet just as a rainstorm will end, each of these seasons is just as temporal as their name.  A season.  In our calendar year, a season is little more than a few months.  In life, seasons may last longer.  Perhaps shorter.  Nevertheless, one season is always followed by the next.  That’s the way our Lord has created the world.  The darkness of winter is followed by the new life of spring.  Similarly, seasons in our lives are never permanent.  Our circumstances will change.  Loved ones may pass away, and new ones are born.  Jobs come and go, friends come and go, health comes and goes. 

Despite the season each of us is in, there is One who remains unchanged.  He is stable, constant, a shelter from the storms of life.  He has granted us hope for tomorrow, although we may not believe until we can see those sunny skies and feel that warmth on our doubtful souls.  He is present before the storm, in the midst of it, and forever beyond it. 

 Today, remember that though the storm may roar before it wanes, He is everlasting.  Let's dig our stubborn boots out of the mud of our own self-pity, and praise him for the hope He has given us!

 He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

Psalm 62:6