Yesterday turned out to be a very stormy day for a lot of folks on the East Coast. I was awakened to loud thunder and lightening in the wee hours of the morning. All I could do was groan when I looked at the clock and read, 2:45am! I had to get up at 5:00am and 15 minutes later I found myself lying awake listening to the rain beat against my windows with more thunder and lightening to follow. “Please dear Lord, let the rain stop—we have a long drive ahead of us.”
By the time we were on our way to Grantham, PA, a 2 hour drive from Philadelphia, it was only drizzling. “Thank you Father!” But about half an hour into our ride it started to rain. As it rained I upped my prayers for our safety and our driving time. Once we hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike, we started driving into storms. At one point the fog was so thick you could only see about 2 cars ahead. My prayers became more fervent to say the least. We made it through the thick fog only to run into lightening. I continued praying even the more. And before we reached our destination, we encountered torrential rains and a lot of water splashing from the big tractor trailers. What a mess!
When we pulled into the visitor parking lot of Messiah College, the soaking rains had eased up considerably. We made it!! We were safe and sound! Yay!!!
As we sat with coffee and muffins, talking to other parents and potential students; I glanced out the floor to ceiling windows and noticed the college students rushing to class in the rain, and just how dreary the day was. But it was also a very exciting day for many of us because of the great hope it held. We were there for Tovah’s interview as a finalist for a full scholarship. That’s the great hope we were looking at.
There were a lot of families who had driven through the same storm, on the same highway as we had. Messiah is a Christian college and most families there professed to be Christians, so my assumption was that they prayed through the storm as I had, and they seemed to have the same excitement and hope as we did. In the end it was a long day, but a good day.
The drive home took less time because the rain had stopped and the roads were dry. We never got to see the sun yesterday, but there was a greater sense of sunshine in our spirits as we talked about the day the Lord had blessed us with and how well we feel things went for Tovah.
Once home, I was able to digest the day’s events. I realized how it reflected the storms of life for us as Believers. No matter how bad the storm progressed, we continued on. Though the morning was dreary, wet and a bit chilly it didn’t dampen our spirits and great expectations of the day and what was to come. The fog didn’t hold us back from getting to our destination on time; it only slowed us down a bit. The continual bad weather only upped my expectation in the Lord to get us there and get us there safely. At the end we sat with a group of our brothers and sisters, talking about the storm that we had just driven through. But the one difference I see in our spiritual storms of life is we have a tendency to waver. We let the heavy rains wash us out and carry us away. We become weak of heart and spirit. We doubt God and His ability to protect us and carry us through. We fall away from God versus run closer to Him. We forget there’s a purpose, plan and destination in it all. And we take our eyes off the One in which our help comes from.
Meditating on the Word of God is what helps us to make it through the storms of life. Knowing how God works (in totality of who He is) helps us to continue to trust Him and remember that He is in control. His Word written on the tablet of our hearts helps us to keep a spirit of praise and thanksgiving for Him when the fog in our lives is so heavy we see no way out.
Sisters, we are going to have storms in our lives, Yeshua (Jesus) all but promised us we would. But how we weather the storms is up to us. He’s told us to be of a good cheer during the storms for He has overcome them for us. Now, it is up to us to grab hold of this truth and apply it to our lives.
We are not alone in the storms of life. All our sisters and brothers in the Messiah encounter them, but at the end, it is our duty to be able to encourage each other in the faithfulness of our Lord during these storms.
Love & Hugs
Ponnie
See you tomorrow!
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