What is she talking about?  If you are living in the Pacific NW, you will see clear, sunny skies. But our world is in a storm today. A storm of helplessness, weakness. Fear. Frustration. Death. Loss.

We are all in this storm. For some, it might be mere sprinkles of rain and a few gusts of wind. Others are facing greater wind and rain. And some are in a hurricane.

I’ve only been in one hurricane. It was a freak one, coming to Oregon and Washington State. The winds shrieked around the house at one-hundred-twenty-five miles an hour. They called it the Columbus Day Storm. The sound of the wind filled me with fear like I’d never experienced before. We could do nothing but wait. Finally after a long night, we woke to peaceful clear autumn skies. We saw havoc all about. The roof of the church next door to our house was gone. The chimney on our fireplace lay down across the roof of our house. There were fir trees down everywhere. There was no power in our house and in most of the county.

There have been other storms in my lifetime. A freak tornado scoured through Clark County. A large store collapsed a mile from the school where I worked. An elementary school less than a mile away collapsed. No children were injured. Six people were killed in the storm.  That storm left less than an hour later. It was quiet. But there was havoc everywhere. We were amazed as we drove through destroyed property with parts of insulation spread over miles. My dad had just parked his car in the little brick garage next to the house. Moments later, that brick structure collapsed onto the car. Had he been in the car, it would  have crushed him.

There have more freak storm throughout my lifetime. Storms of ice. Snow. Another freak tornado. There have been storms of illness. Pain. Death. Loss of a job. Loss of finances. I felt helpless. I couldn’t  control any of them and I waited for it to pass.

Where are you today? Are you feeling in this storm of the pandemic that life ever return to normal? We hope and are told it will cease at some point, but I don’t believe we’ll be back to normal anytime soon. There will be fear. Fear of loss. Fear we’ll get sick. Fear we will lose someone. Fear it will return.

This morning, I read something written by a man who knew great loss, yet great joy. His name was Paul, the apostle. He wrote to the people in Rome about 57 AD.

3Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 

I read on to the next verse and I hope it gives you courage as it did me:

5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Romans 5:3-5 NIV). 

We have been gifted with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives a calmness we don’t have in our own strength and spirit. We are promised hope.

There will be other storms in this life because we live in an imperfect world. The storm of this pandemic will end.

It will get better. I found that to be true in the past few years of waiting for storms in my life to pass that were unseen storms. Storms of loss and illness. This storm will end. There will be calm but we won’t be the same. Hopefully, we will experience the changes promised in the verses above. Perseverance. Character. Hope.

Together, we wait.