Storms

We had three storms last week. Never had that before. Not in my memory anyway. We took all possible precautions to stay safe. We had friends visiting from Bristol on Friday. They didn’t come. It would have been silly and dangerous. We postponed our visit to the vet with the cats because we had been told to stay at home. To be honest that suited us because trying to get our cats into their carriers to get them to the vet is not fun. In fact it’s almost impossible. So the storm worked in our favour! But damage was done. The storms wreaked their havoc. Tragically some people lost their lives. Property was damaged. Homes were flooded. Transport links were disrupted. We are very aware of the power of a storm. And we had three in a week. We can’t control the weather even if we might be to mitigate to some extent, its effects. And we know that life has other kinds of storms. Our journey through the last couple of years has shown us that if we didn’t know it already. Life is unpredictable and uncertain. Things happen that are simply beyond our control. We get blown about, bashed about, turned upside down and inside out. We get knocked down and kicked about. o be in a storm can be a frightening and disorienting place to be. And, even if we see a storm coming, it’s sometimes hard to be ready when it hits. I think that’s how I feel right now: there might be a storm coming and I’m not sure how ready I am. One day the disciples got in a boat because Jesus told them to. He went to sleep because he was tired. A storm began as they were crossing the lake. It was a bad storm, so bad that the disciples, hardened fishermen though they were, were terrified and thought they wold drown. Jesus slept. They woke him up staggered that he appeared not to care at all for their welfare or their lives. He, Jesus, told the storm to stop. It did. He asked the disciples why they were so worried. What they had failed to grasp was that the storm was simply no threat to Jesus. That’s why he was able to sleep while the storm raged. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, he cared deeply. It was that the storm was no threat to him. And Jesus was in the boat with them. Perhaps the question for us becomes: when the storm comes, who would we most want in the boat with us?