By I need three hands to count how many years I lived in California. I only need one to count how many thunderstorms I experienced while I was there.
The other night I was out for a walk on an empty Texas road. In every direction there were dark skies and frantic streaks of lightning. Thunder grumbled ominously off in the distance.
But where I was walking, it was calm. I could see stars above me. There was no commotion, no wind, no rain.
If we named the storms of 2020 like they do hurricanes, we’d have exhausted the alphabet many times over. I don’t need to list them. They’re stamped into our skin like a reckless night at a tattoo parlor.
Sometimes, the smoke from the fires is so thick that it’s as if the sun slept through its morning alarm and just said “forget it”. And we go whole days
with no light.
But on that quiet road I remembered.
About two thousand years ago there was a whole night
with no darkness.
That stuck with me, because I’ve been searching for light
in what seems to be only darkness.
I’ve been searching for truce
in what feels like a war of the worlds.
I’ve been searching for truth
in a raucous cacophony of ideologies, so many to choose from.
I’ve been searching for a way, like an x-ray
to see through the confusion.
But on that quiet road I remembered.
What better way to find the truth
than through God’s spoken word?
What better way to find light
than by He who created it?
I can’t always find the why of the storms
but I’m thankful
that I can always find the eye.
The calm. The comfort.
The correctness.
Even with the all hardship, harshness,
and thunder in all directions
if we follow Him
we will not walk in darkness.
He didn’t say when, or even if
these tempests would cease
but that He would walk with us
and in Him, we could still find peace.
On that quiet road
He remembered me.
