DailySusan Humor Blog

A HAND IN THE STORM

For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
-- Isaiah 25:4

It’s storm season on the Great Plains. We peer suspiciously at the sky a lot. Been there, done that, bought the radio batteries.

A guy from our church was nearly killed by a million-volt bolt of lightning last weekend, and his son was gravely injured. A small nearby town lost its beautiful school and most everything else in a recent tornado; the pictures just make you wince.

Weather talk is everywhere. Even Maddy, our 4-year-old, is drawing pictures of ‘’whirling, squirreling tor-ma-toes.’’

My old reporter friend tells of a deadly nighttime storm years ago that wiped out a town hundreds of miles away. Next morning, before the dispatched reporters could get there, he had to find someone with a working telephone to get the story for an immediate deadline. He must have tried 50 numbers. Finally, someone answered.

‘’Halllllooooo?’’

‘’Oh, thank goodness there’s someone there! I’m from the daily newspaper back in Omaha. I need you to tell me everything you saw and heard, and everything you know, so I can meet my deadline in five minutes. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are very worried and concerned about your town. Yours will be the first word of the tragedy that will go out. Can you help me? What can you tell me? What happened? What was it like?’’

On the other end, silence.

Finally: ‘’Halllllooooo?’’

Wouldn’t you just know? The only person with a working telephone within miles of the epicenter was hard of hearing.

That’s how it is, with storms. Things get fast and furious, and there’s little you can do. You’re on your own. It’s never tidy. When Mother Nature gets PMS, ain’t no chocolates gonna calm her down.

But then again, she can be overruled.

My friend used to live in Houston. It seems they put up a lot of houses there in a short amount of time, as the city grew really fast. Construction quality, consequently, is not always tip-top.

That’s no problem most of the time. But then there’s the exception: hurricanes.

A hurricane is like a ‘’tor-ma-to’’ with PMS, hemorrhoids and really bad gas.

A hurricane that came through Houston once was so fierce, my friend thought for sure they were all going to die.

She and her husband and children were huddled in a small room of their house for hours as the storm raged. The winds were horrific. The house shook. As good Christians, they.prayed and prayed.

Suddenly, my friend got a vision of a hand, up on its fingertips, over their house, as if encircling it. Just as soon as she ‘’saw’’ it, the vision disappeared.

She blinked, but then went back to worrying and praying.

The family was so cramped that they decided to take their chances and wait out the storm in their family room.

Several more hours passed, including a loud BANG! overhead, followed by a lot of BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!’s. They were amazed that the roof didn’t collapse. Not even a drop of rain leaked in.

When they finally got outside, they saw that a huge tree had fallen on their chimney. Tons of bricks had been knocked backward explosively onto their roof -- right on top of the family room, where they’d been huddling.

When a contractor could finally get up there to see about repairs, he came down shaking his head.

‘’Lady,’’ he said, ‘’do you know that you have not one, but TWO, steel I-beams over your family room? I’ve never seen that before, in all my years in construction. Double beams! That’s what saved your house, and saved your lives.’’

She immediately thought back to the vision of the hand covering the house.

The clouds parted, and the light broke . . . and through her tears, she basked in the incomparable calm that comes AFTER the storm . . . when you know He had you covered, safe and sound, literally under His hand.

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Prayer request: We ask your blessing on the Saturday wedding of our dear friends Steve and Cheryl. It was memorable for many reasons – they’ve been sweethearts for many years, it took place outside their wonderful new home, was full of joy since Steve survived an aortic aneurysm a few months ago, and accented with mystery and excitement, starting an hour late, because Cheryl’s wedding dress got locked up accidentally! Lord, only You can weave together a love story like this. We pray that their marriage will honor You and they’ll live happily ever after. (John 17:24)