Weathering Storms of Life
I have become aware over the past year of the amount of unstable weather that has come our way—thunderstorms and straight-line winds. Anything that is not anchored down gets blown away, including trees and sometimes even houses. While devastating, it still seems like small potatoes in my mind. Of course, I am speaking from the experience of sitting through a full-blown hurricane for 24 hours.
I grew up in Fort Myers, Florida. If you live in Florida long enough, you will experience a hurricane. I had just turned 15 years old and was ready to go back to school after summer break—but not before Hurricane Donna passed through.
What made it so difficult was that a hurricane lingers. It takes hours to blow over. My family had plenty of warning that it was going to hit us directly, but we still were not prepared to endure more than 24 hours of relentless winds, including gusts of at least 125 miles per hour.
Hurricanes start out slowly. The wind builds until it is howling. All we could do was stay inside our house and wait it out. It was nerve-racking to listen to our house being torn apart over the course of those long hours. First, the floor flooded with an inch of water. Then we heard our carport, which was attached to the house, being ripped apart and thrown by the wind on top of the rest of the house.
Although I was scared, I was even more aware of how exhausting it was. There was no sleep and the constant worry of, "What's next?"
Sometimes life feels the same way as we ask that very question: "What's next?"
Building a foundation of faith in Christ helps us weather the storms of life that come our way. The disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee learned that lesson. Jesus, realizing the disciples were full of fear, stood up and calmed the wind and the waves that were tossing their little boat back and forth.
I still face storms occasionally. I get tossed around, and important things in my life get blown away. But my foundation in Christ keeps me standing. While I sometimes feel like I am hanging on for dear life, I know that when the storm finally passes, Christ is standing beside me.
Just remember Christ when the weather gets bad.
Just a Thought Not a Sermon
I grew up in Fort Myers, Florida. If you live in Florida long enough, you will experience a hurricane. I had just turned 15 years old and was ready to go back to school after summer break—but not before Hurricane Donna passed through.
What made it so difficult was that a hurricane lingers. It takes hours to blow over. My family had plenty of warning that it was going to hit us directly, but we still were not prepared to endure more than 24 hours of relentless winds, including gusts of at least 125 miles per hour.
Hurricanes start out slowly. The wind builds until it is howling. All we could do was stay inside our house and wait it out. It was nerve-racking to listen to our house being torn apart over the course of those long hours. First, the floor flooded with an inch of water. Then we heard our carport, which was attached to the house, being ripped apart and thrown by the wind on top of the rest of the house.
Although I was scared, I was even more aware of how exhausting it was. There was no sleep and the constant worry of, "What's next?"
Sometimes life feels the same way as we ask that very question: "What's next?"
Building a foundation of faith in Christ helps us weather the storms of life that come our way. The disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee learned that lesson. Jesus, realizing the disciples were full of fear, stood up and calmed the wind and the waves that were tossing their little boat back and forth.
I still face storms occasionally. I get tossed around, and important things in my life get blown away. But my foundation in Christ keeps me standing. While I sometimes feel like I am hanging on for dear life, I know that when the storm finally passes, Christ is standing beside me.
Just remember Christ when the weather gets bad.
Just a Thought Not a Sermon
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