Hurricanes of Life

When I was in seventh grade, Hurricane David made its direct path to my hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida. Having lived in a mobile home, we had to evacuate to a house of a friend. I remember having the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend off, but most of all, I wondered if we would return to our home intact. We did, as Hurricane David drifted out to sea right before it hit us and then went north and did extreme damage to Savanah, Georgia. This Labor Day weekend I’m watching the weather channel to see if my hometown will get a direct hit from Hurricane Dorian.

Natural disasters have always hit every type of landscape. People will go on social media and tell us how stupid people are to live in these areas, while all along they live in areas that have storms, but no one mocks them. You can’t escape nature, which for those of us who are believers in God as the Creator, you can’t escape the presence of God. You can only trust God. It doesn’t mean that God will keep you away from all storms. The earth is groaning because of sin. Natural disasters occur. We can evacuate and keep our lives safe, but we may not escape the damage that the storm will cause. Storms are a natural part of our lives that will either strengthen or weaken us.

We cannot escape the storms. The people on social media that blast the people who live in areas where nature hits others with storms usually do not look at their own storms. Whether it is physical, emotional, social, mental, or from family around us, we all have storms in our lives. For the people who look at us and mock us for living where we do, they only see our lives when the storms hit. In the truth of it, they are jealous of our lives for the beauty that it has. People never tell us to move away from the beach or the mountains when it is a beautiful day. They only mock us when we encounter storms. Think about it. They are not people we want to turn to when our storms hit, but for some reason they find a way to turn to us.  People mock us when life is full of storms because they do not want anyone to see the storms that they are enduring. Those of us who are followers of Christ, know that we have to build people up and not tear them down. Those who mock us are afraid that the same storms that we are enduring, they will soon endure. They walk by fear not by faith. Be strong and walk by faith.  Do not listen to those who mock. Listen to the voices of those who lift you up.

Everyone has encountered storms in their lives. It’s not whether we will have storms, but how will we respond when they occur. James says that when we face trials of many kinds, not if we face trials of many kinds. We are to grow and become strong with the storms in life that we face. Sometimes, the clean-up from storms takes a long time, but in the end, a new beginning occurs.

I volunteered for a week in New Orleans five months after Hurricane Katrina hit the city and devastated it. There are signs that a storm hit that city as there are some permanent changes. One of the permanent changes is the entire school system is charter schools. It’s not political, but rather who returned or stayed after the storm. How we live after the storm proves whether or not we learned from the storm and have grown from it. There will be changes and hopefully we are better for it.

Change causes growth, so the change is good. A storm causes us to seek help from God and others. We do not have to encounter the storm alone. We shouldn’t. We should seek help from God and people who give us strength. We need to look for ways to survive the storm, not only while we are enduring it, but also after it. The aftermath is proof of our trust in God and our strength in ourselves.

Storms make us strong. We don’t like storms, but their devastation can make us stronger. We see the beauty in our lives before the storm and even more beauty after it. I have grown and discovered my strengths not from the comfortable and easy times in life, but from the storms. Sometimes I made the wrong decisions while encountering storms and created new ones. With time and wisdom, I have discovered that it is during those times that I didn’t listen to the wisdom of God or of others.

For all of us who encounter storms in our lives, we will rise and we will be strong. A hurricane cannot keep us down. It cannot take our love for God or our love for others. It will cause destruction, but it will not destroy who we are. We find comfort in God, and in the end, we are better for it.