After the Storm…

Hurricane Ian paid a visit to my hometown in Florida, then looped around and came straight to my home in South Carolina. At my house, there were a few limbs down, and we got some much-needed rain, but that was about it. My lights flickered only once. 

The story in Florida is much different. All my family and friends are safe, and the ranch house was not damaged. In a twelve-hour period, however, we received about 24 inches of rain. The road down from the house was washed out, and two big culverts are lying crossways in the gully. Most of the oranges have blown off the trees. The protective nets we use to cover resets have blown off; some have blown away.

Our foreman, John, tells me that water has pushed the fence down at every creek. The cows are scattered in our cousin’s pasture and our neighbor’s grove. The power was out for several days. Everything is a mess. 

In my home county, bridges collapsed, water covered the roads, and 99% of the county was without power. Barns were blown down as well as the big, majestic oaks. 

Fences can be rebuilt. We have crop insurance on the oranges (not enough, but every little bit helps). The cows lived through the storm if we can find them. We have generators to run the freezers and the refrigerators. Compared to folks at the coast, our damage was light. 

Headlines tell us the death toll is over 100 people. The phrase “death toll” sounds too impersonal. One hundred people dead means fathers who will not dance at their daughters’ weddings; mothers who will not offer advice to adult children; sons who will not be there to take care of their parents as they age; and daughters who will not be there to bury their parents. Every one of those 100 lives lost means a funeral and people who are asking “Why?” 

There is no simple phrase that answers the question, “why?”  Some people died because they failed to evacuate. God is not to blame for poor judgment. Some people died because the houses they occupied were not built to withstand a storm. Jesus told a story about this, about wise people building their houses on the rock, while foolish people build their houses on the sand. People who survived the storm at Sanibel Island can tell you sand shifts in a storm. Remember, Jesus knows a thing or two about construction.

Other people died, and we can’t point to poor judgment or shoddy construction. Part of the brokenness of this world is innocent people die for reasons we do not understand. There is a man in the Bible, Job, who suffers immensely, and he never really knows why. All he knows is in the agony of his suffering; he wants a meeting with God. He has questions he wants God to answer. God does show up, coming in a whirlwind. God never answers Job’s questions, but he offers Job his presence. In the end, Job declares in God’s presence he understands the most important thing: God is in charge, and Job is not. 

After the storm, your trust in God is tested. You must decide if you trust God to work good in all things. You must decide if you can trust God to comfort you when you are not getting the answers you want. You must decide if you can trust God to walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death. You must decide if you can really trust God, who is in charge, no matter what you think of him.

These decisions are stressful. They mean you must go against the feeling of the moment, whether despair, grief, or simply being overwhelmed. What I have found is this: trust comes before peace. The peace of God will be given, but only when I open my heart and trust in him.

I think about storms around the world. In Pakistan, over 1,600 people are dead in monsoon flooding. Fourteen thousand are dead in the Ukraine. The stock market seems to be sailing through stormy waters. 

A marriage ends. A child is sick. A promotion doesn’t come. Depression won’t lift. Teens rebel.   Small storms seem that way to outsiders but loom large to those in the midst of trouble.

Whether the storm is literal or symbolic, your soul can get seasick. That is why the Psalms over and over sing to us, “God is our refuge and strength.”  Whatever storm you face, the safest place to be is in the arms of our great, loving Heavenly Father. He holds you in the storm and even after the storm is over.