Through The Storms of Life

On the East Coast we've battened down the hatches in anticipation of Hurricane Sandy.  She's a hurricane we're not likely to soon forget.  We've been warned of the potential devastation that this storm will bring.  Some have heeded and moved to safety while others have decided to ride it out. Storms both actual, symbolic and methaphoric are a necessary part of life.

Storms are necessary, they clear out clutter and unnecessary things --and people -- in our lives.  Sometimes we get a warning about the storm and it's potential to devastate our lives -- that lump in the breast, the sudden late nights out or need to get to work early.  We can prepare for the storm or we can ignore the warnings.  Either the way the storm is still coming.  The challenge becomes fear or faith?  Fear limits our vision and can remind us of our finite limitations.

(The power went out when I got this far.)

We're not so comfortable with those limitations.  The trick is to learn to surrender, to surrender with no guarantee concerning the outcome.  It's not always easy, faith gets us there.   Walter Russell Mead expresses it well:

To open your eyes to the fragility of life and to our dependence on that which is infinitely greater than ourselves is to enter more deeply into life. To come to terms with the radical insecurity in which we all live is to find a different and more reliable kind of security. The joys and occupations of ordinary life aren’t all there is to existence, but neither are the great and all-destroying storms. There is a calm beyond the storm, and the same force that sends these storms into our lives offers a peace and security that no storm can destroy. As another one of the psalms puts it, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Accepting your limits and your dependence on things you can’t control is the first step on the road toward finding that joy.

The sun is shining outside of the storm and we will see it will shine again . . . when the storm passes.  We will survey the damage, pick up the pieces, salvage what we can.  It's not easy and why should it be?  Things always look different after the storm, hope yet remains, just keep swimming.