I Love Thunderstorms

Living in Western Washington we don't tend to get very powerful thunderstorms - especially when compared with other parts of the country.  Here, our thunderstorms are more of a loud light show - sometimes small hail falls between rain showers.   The air feels and smells clean after these super soaker booming light displays.  And it's awesome!  God's power is evident and it is beautiful to watch.   If we lose power as a result of one of these storms, it's an opportunity for a fun adventure and I always know that the outage is only temporary. 

Every so often a more severe storm is predicted by our weather forecasters like the one last night that they were warning about for days.   They said this one was not our typical thunderstorm and to stay indoors and away from windows.   They predicted anywhere from dime to softball sized hail and even warned that these storms were going to be powerful enough to spawn tornadoes- an extreme rarity in our area.  People were scared.  I went grocery shopping yesterday morning and a woman in line to check out said she and her husband were going to go to a movie so they could park in the parking garage and avoid hail damage to their car.  Tuesday I was volunteering at my son's school and one of the other moms was concerned about the coming potential tornadoes.   Even my husband,  who was out of town, called me to make suggestions about how to prepare and discussed strategies for staying safe and protecting our vehicle (I had to take the kids to get their teeth cleaned at 4pm and would be leaving at about the time the storm was supposed to hit.)

But, in the end, the storm didn't turn out to be as powerful as they thought and it didn't even reach our area until after 7pm.  By 9pm all was quiet.  We never lost power, we never got any hail and there were no tornadoes.   This thunderstorm wasn't even as spectacular as the last one we had around here.  It's still important to be prepared because we HAVE had big storms that have knocked our power out for days (7 days without power is our record).  But all the hype and stress I saw out there approaching this storm was unnecessary. 

It reminded me of ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:6‭-‬7‬ ‭‭‭- Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

God put that in the Bible because He knew we would experience many different types of storms in our lives and they would cause us to feel anxious.   But Jesus is the Creator of the wind, rain, hail, lightning, thunder, etc and they all obey Him.  He is in total control.  Storms are temporary and they cleanse the earth and bring refreshment once they are over.  

The weather mimics storms in our own lives - troubles we experience that cause us worry and stress.  But if we remember that God is in total control and that these troubles are only temporary, then we can look forward to the calm refreshment that comes when they eventually pass.  And we can even still our hearts in the midst of these storms that come our way to watch God's awesome and beautiful power at work to bring about a cleansing of an area of our lives that we probably didn't realize needed a good pressure washing.

When we lived in Arizona, it was almost always sunny and hot.  Rarely was there a cloud in the sky.  Being from the Pacific Northwest where the sky is constantly changing I found the constant sunshine boring - almost irritating- and the heat oppressive.  The pollution hung in the air - it was thick and unhealthy and the area only got a cleansing during monsoon season.  When the heavy rains of the monsoon season came, my husband and I would put our garage door up and sit on the tailgate of our truck inside and just watch the downpour.  We missed the rain!  

If we experience only smooth, sunny days, we can become bored and complacent. Our minds can become polluted and we don't get to experience the awesome power of God in the storms!  I used to babysit quite a bit and one night there was a thunderstorm and the little boy I was babysitting was scared of the loud thunder.   I told him it was just God talking and we then speculated about what He might be saying.   It passed the time and it calmed the little boy's fears.  

Sometimes God has to send a thunderstorm into our lives to get our attention. 

We prepare for thunderstorms by having fresh batteries in our flashlights, charging up lanterns, having candles and matches or lighters where we can get to them, maybe we have a generator and fuel where we can easily access them, etc.  As believers, we prepare for the storms in life by regularly spending time with the Lord - studying His Word, praying constantly about everything, quietly meditating on whatever the Spirit lays on our hearts and listening for what He is trying to tell us - being open to things that may be hard to swallow about ourselves.  If we maintain a moment-by-moment closeness with Jesus, the storms of life are a lot easier to navigate.