Be Still In The Storm

Pop!!

Hmmmm… what was that?

The sound rang out in our living room right in the middle of a violent thunderstorm.

Smoke filled the room.

“Girls, run to the car!”

Dad yelled, and all five of us rushed out of the house.The yard smelled of sulfur and flashed like a dance floor. Rain pelted our skin as three terrified children huddled in the car. We quickly drove to the other side of the block to our grandparents’ house, where we called the fire department.

The firefighters confirmed that our antenna had been struck by lightning. The electricity had traveled through a wire into the house, and what we heard was it popping through the walls.

This is where my mind goes whenever there’s a storm—back to that moment.

And yet, this is only a fraction of how the disciples must have felt when they were caught on a boat in a storm far more violent than the one that hit my house that night… while Jesus was sleeping.

They ran to Him, and Jesus said, “Why are you worried?” Then He simply told the storm to be still.

As I walk through this season of my life—watching my father age and facing the possibility of losing him, while my own body battles increasing pain from Ehlers-Danlos, all while raising my six-year-old and trying to give her the best life possible—I feel like I’m being tossed in the waves.

I find myself wondering how I’m going to survive this storm.

And Jesus is saying, “Look at Me. I am the calm in the storm.”

So all I need to do… is be still.

“He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.”

—Mark 4:39 (NIV)