Party Prep, Power Lines and Pears . . .

“And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.  And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”  And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” Matthew 8:23-27

My youngest daughter turned 27 on September 30th. It was the first time in five years that she was going to be “home” for her birthday. We had planned a big celebration for Saturday, September 28th, all four sisters would be there for a special meal with fancy china and attire. I set the table early knowing food prep would consume my time. Then I went to bed, thinking I would start the birthday cake in the morning. The morning of Friday, September 27th.

It was 4AM when my husband shouted and rolled over on top of me to shield me from the tree that seemed to be falling into our bedroom. The tree stopped short of the sliding glass door that leads from the deck into the house, but the wind continued to howl, snapping the tops off trees all around us. Hurricane Helene had not gone west to Atlanta, it had come straight to our house.

We spent the next three hours in the basement, waiting for morning light, wandering from room to room, mopping up rain that poured inside, praying for ourselves and our friends caught in the middle of an inland hurricane. As dawn lit the landscape the devastation became clear. 75 mile an hour winds had cleared a portion of our woods leaving limbs and giant oak trees hanging precariously.

Hurricane Helene caught us off guard, not expecting to experience an eye wall situation because we live so far inland. We don’t live on the coast like we did 35 years ago when Hurricane Hugo ravaged Charleston.

We had lived in Charleston for three months when Hurricane Hugo started making it’s way across the Atlantic. New to the south and this kind of storm, I had taped a few windows, put important papers on top shelves, and filled a few containers with water when my husband called and told me to pack the car and head north. As a surgical resident at the Medical University of South Carolina, he was required to stay, but knew a mandatory evacuation was coming. I put our two and a half year-old twin daughters in the car around midnight and drove all the way to New York.

I’m not sure you can ever really be prepared for the storms of life. Reality is not a true/false test where if you just study hard enough you can pass. Every life storm offers a new challenge; an eventuality you did not realize you had to study for. Preparation is important, but if the generator in the basement floods and the one on the roof blows away, as they did at the hospital during Hurricane Hugo, doctors are still left in the dark dealing with all the patients.

Flexibility and faith are key to surviving life’s storms. You can cry. You can bewail the unfairness of storms hitting where they are not supposed to, diseases affecting those that are too young to contemplate death, birthday parties that have to be cancelled. You can demand the power be turned back on, yelling at every customer service rep until you have no voice left, or you can flex.

Flex your faith muscles; flex your sensitivity to others. Remember that you are not the center of the universe; those linemen are working to restore power to everyone; hospitals, schools, senior citizens’ homes, urban areas and rural. Remember that for hundreds of years people lived without cell phones and computers and internet and refrigeration. Remember that God is still in control. He still loves you, is still with you, and has a plan, even if it’s not your plan.

Storms have a way of reminding us that the best laid plans of men are subject to change. We did celebrate our daughter’s birthday on Monday. Not the way we had planned to, but we were all alive, not pinned under a giant oak tree. We had to flex, to bend our will and expectations and bring them into alignment with God’s plans.

I don’t know what storm you are currently facing. Perhaps your skies are sunny and clear, even as ours are today, but In the wake of a storm what do you do? Jesus’ disciples were with Him in a boat during a storm one time. They all freaked out, woke Him up and told Him they were in danger of perishing. Jesus was not impressed. Neither was He surprised or nervous, He merely calmed the storm.

I believe that God can calm any storm. I don’t say that lightly, I’ve been through quite a few storms over the last two years. God can be trusted. He will not always make the storm go away. He will not always give you the outcome you think you desire, but He will always be with you, molding you into the image of His son.

I was thinking a lot about mold today as I scrubbed the dishwasher I forgot to run last Thursday. We still have no power, no hot water, no cold water, no refrigeration, no internet. There are a lot of things we do not have, but we do have mold. If I could as quickly be molded into the image of God as the mold in the dishwasher grew it would be amazing! I do wonder why the bad things spread so easily and the good things take years to become established.

The disciples had been following Jesus, seeing miracles and hearing Him teach for some time before He stilled the storm at sea. Their faith was still growing; growth takes time. Even as our muscles need exercise to become strong, our faith needs a few storms to become strong, to give us the opportunity to respond in faith and watch God deliver.

God continues to mold and shape me, and I can report that I have responded better to Hurricane Helene than I did to Hurricane Hugo. Though Helene’s damage is greater than what we experienced during Hugo, my faith is greater as well. In the wake of this storm, I pray and wait to see what God will do next. As He transforms my landscaping, what is He transforming in my heart?

I love pears. I don’t always buy them because it is hard to get them perfectly ripe. On a whim last Wednesday, I bought a bag of pears and placed them in my kitchen. They endured the storm and waited patiently as we ate up all the perishables in the refrigerator. At just the right moment, when we needed a bit of nourishment, they were perfectly ripe. They needed no refrigeration, no oven, no fancy recipe, they were sweet and delicious just the way God designed them. God can be trusted to provide, in the big storms of life and the little ones.