Middle of the Storm

Have you ever been in the middle of a storm of life? You know when it seems like everything is falling, the winds are ripping past you and taking things you hold dear and flinging them out of your hands and far away. When it seems like nothing good is happening and nothing good will come out of it. I think you know the storms I am talking about, the ones we all go through in our life.

Recently someone mentioned to me a story of a tornado as it applied in my life. After she said all this about the tornado I thought, yes my life is like a tornado at times, with things constantly flying by and turmoil can be seen all around me, it is what happens when you spend many years in child welfare. You know this was not the first mention of my life with reference to a storm and me being in the middle unharmed.  What I think of when I hear this, its just a reminder of God’s faithfulness. How many times have I been in the storm? More times than I can count. This also applies in the physical side of things.

When I moved to Michigan with a dear friend, we were told, tornados do not happen often here, we are at the top of area where they happen so it is more rare. The day we arrived, within a few hours, what should appear? Thats right a tornado, not far from the hotel we stayed at that first night. In my mind when I saw that, it was like I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. One time, I was driving 2 kids back from a visit with their mom, the drive back to their foster home was about an hour and a half, one child was sitting up front and one, much younger sibling was in the back watching a movie on my iPad with her headphones on. As we drove, the weather quickly turned from the bright sunshine we had just been in to hail, and thunder and lighting and winds that almost pulled my car off the road. My cell phone went off with the tornado warning, my friends that knew my route (I did this trip weekly) were texting like crazy. I saw the storm and the tornado not too far from us (turns out it destroyed a town pretty bad about 5 miles from where we were) and my first response was to pray for safety. Then to have the child that was in my front seat, I calmed her down, I had her text her foster mom and check to find out where they were at and if the tornado was heading that way or not. I then had her send a text for me to my roommate to let her know we were safe and continuing home. Then I drove, I focused and prayed and played music loud enough to distract the one in my front seat while hoping the younger one’s movie did not end. All the while, I knew we would be safe, God always keeps me safe in the storms. I got the children home, and continued to my home. I had peace throughout the storm, I knew that God would protect us. Again, when I left Michigan to move back to California, my sister was driving and all of a sudden there was the tornado warning on our phones and the weather quickly changed. My sister freaking out a bit since she had not driven in a tornado. So when it was finally safe enough to switch I took over the driving and almost immediately the storm stopped.

Always in the storm, I find peace. I know that many other people do not find peace when they are in a storm. Do you? Do you remember that God is there? Do you stand on his promises?