The Eye Of The Storm

A flashing sign on the right hand side of freeway warned of possible drenched road ahead. Weather forecasters earlier in day predicted a late summer thunder storm. Having just left hot, humid, beautiful Annapolis behind, and threatening clouds seemingly a safe distance from our route, we continued driving back to Virginia. Minutes passed, cars up ahead slowed and red flashers alerted my husband to ease up on gas pedal. He flipped on windshield wipers. Slanted sheets of rain began pelting against the car. Wipers flipped in furious motion as we crept down the freeway, glancing at clock, murmuring to ourselves that the forecasters had it right all along. Almost to the minute. Tree limbs whipped, a frenzied dance of mother nature. Branches blew across road, leaves coated ground in complete surrender. Dark, pregnant clouds continued delivering buckets of rain from their plump bellies. My seventeen month-old granddaughter, who was seated facing me, studied swirling rain drops clinging to window. Watching her intent expression, I wondered at the vulnerability of it all. At the fragility of my plans and how can I ever escape the aching need to control and command? Would I really want to know that this thundering storm was looming, just up the way? A.W. Tozer said: "The knowledge that we are never alone calms the troubled sea of our lives and speaks peace to our souls." To have the next crisis I face forecasted like the weather would be itself spiritual disaster. A thought flitted across my mind like those fireflies at midnight. A typical tropical cyclone will have a region of calm weather right in the middle of the storm. The eye of the storm. Hmmm...The intensity of the rain eased a bit, sky brightened from its menacing darkness, and granddaughter played with her painted toes. Husband's shoulders relaxed, dropping a few inches. Then we are never alone in the storm? Can I truly trust in the middle of it all? The scary parts and fearful moments? Journey calmly through plans I never crafted? I looked at my granddaughter, who by now had abandoned her serious expression, trading it for silliness and play. Oswald Chambers wrote: "Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God's will is behind it. Therefore you can rest in perfect confidence in Him." Then this is the eye of the storm, this calming trust, this divine control and unfurled fist receiving and thanking. The hand that reached out to Peter is the same hand that catches us when we fall. I wanted to tell my granddaughter I had it all figured out, just like the weatherman had earlier today. That storms will surely blow her way, she might cringe standing out in the wind, but she had to fix her gaze on the center, the middle place where she would find refuge and peace. Her giggles interrupted my musings and I re-planted sunglasses on bridge of my nose. Mentally calculating how soon we could get pedicures together, I turned my concentration to passing scenery as we buzzed down highway, leaving the thundering storm behind.