Tag: storm

Am I a Songbird, a Crow, or Silent?

What kind of bird am I? Do I sing with the rest of the choir when the sun is shining but keep my beak clamped shut when my life is overcast? Worse yet, do I sit on my tree-top and squalk at those around me like a crow no matter how my surroundings appear?

I look forward to walking out the door of my apartment each morning. Not only am I escaping my tiny box of a home that I share with my 110 plus pound great dane and way-too-fat cat, I also enjoy the morning choir of songbirds that I am almost always blessed to listen to as I walk to my car each day. The chirping and singing is so cheerful it can brighten even the darkest of my moods as I make that short treck to the parking lot.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I glanced out the window and found the skies to be overcast and dreary. I continued getting ready without noticing that my good mood was starting to cloud over with the skies. Though my life is really blessed and I have been very happy lately, I was allowing the blah-ness of the day to affect me without realizing it. When I had completed my morning routine, I grabbed my purse, lunch and keys and headed for my car. My thoughts were consumed by my schedule for the day and shadowed over by the clouds overhead, but about ten feet out my apartment door I heard something that stopped me in my tracks.

Despite the cloudy, dreary-looking skies, I could hear birds singing. I didn’t hear as many voices in the choir as on a sunny day, but that didn’t effect the beauty of their song. I forgot about my to-do list. I forgot about the clouds hiding the sun. I remembered just how blessed I am. I remembered how happy I am. Then I had a random thought. What kind of bird am I?

Do I sing with the rest of the choir when the sun is shining but keep my beak clamped shut when my life is overcast? Worse yet, do I sit on my tree-top and squalk at those around me like a crow no matter how my surroundings appear? I would love to say I continue my song even when I can’t feel the warmth of the sun’s rays on me, but I know I fail at this more often than not. These random thoughts reminded me of the Apostle Paul when he said, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want (Philippians 4:12, NIV).”

Am I content with my life so that I can sing my way through sunshine, clouds or rain? Am I content with my life so that I can lift some else’s spirit through the clouds or rain? I should sing despite the dark days. The Holy Spirit should be able to use me to lift the spirit of others on the overcast days we share. I should be a songbird no matter the skies.

Shifting From the Winds to the Eye of the Storm

Have you ever lived in a geographic location where you have to deal with the threat of possible hurricanes?  The weather guy has made his prediction that it’s a category 2 now but may strengthen and make landfall as a category 4 in the next 24 to 48 hours.  Should you run to the store and stock up on bread and bottled water?  Should you go to the nearest gas station and fill your vehicles and multiple gas cans…just in case?  Should you evacuate and hope everything is still standing when the storm is over?  Should you just stay put and not worry about anything because these things usually end up proving to be much less than predicted?

In recent months, I have found that my life has almost always consisted of preparations for the next “hurricane,” but in the last few years I have not been preparing as I should.  It took the most recent hurricane for me to realize just how ill-prepared I really am.  Four weeks ago, I moved out.  I left my husband whom I have been with for the last 25 years, and I am now living with my 22 year old son.  I was not really prepared for this hurricane at all.  At first, I thought the storm would completely blow over and dissipate as real hurricanes often do.  I was wrong.  The hurricane force winds are still blowing all around me as they have done for years, but one thing is very different.  I don’t feel those winds.  I am sitting comfortably in the eye of the storm.  I can see the winds, but they can’t touch me unless I allow myself to shift from the eye of the storm back into the actual storm itself.

Every day I spend out of the winds makes me realize a little more just how hard and how long they have been blowing.  I think I have been trying to stand upright in the strongest of hurricane winds for most of my life.  For years, I have fought to hold my life together using my own strength, but I have always known my own strength would never be enough.  I have always known that God was the only One strong enough to hold anything together, but I have consistently fought giving Him control.  Oh, I say all the right things: “I have given everything in this situation to God and will accept whatever He does to fix it.”  In reality, I may give it to Him, but I keep my grip firmly on one little corner and eventually pull the whole situation, no matter what it is, back on my own shoulders which have proven time and again to be too weak to carry the burden.

I am a fixer by nature.  I fix other peoples’ problems all the time.  I have many people who come to me at the first indication of a problem and ask for my advice and help.  I’ve been told I give good advice.  I help everyone else prepare for whatever hurricane they are living through, but when it comes to my own hurricanes I have consistently found myself ill-prepared.  I know where I need to go for hurricane provisions, but I have avoided gathering those provisions because I was afraid I would not find the answers I wanted mixed in with the bread and bottled water.  I was terrified that I would read Scripture and pray and realize that God never wanted me where I was and definitely wanted me elsewhere.  I have been terrified for a very long time, I think because I have known for a very long time that God did not want me to have ever stepped into the path of these particular winds.  I walked right into these hurricane force winds on my own and begged God to calm the storm.  Of course, He would calm the storm because He does not condone divorce, right?

God did not calm the storm.  He did not stop the winds.  He did not provide any way to survive in the storm.  Instead, He gave me numerous opportunities to walk out of the storm on my own, but I ignored those opportunities.  I was stubborn and stayed just to prove I could and used Scripture in the wrong way in order to excuse my bad decision.  I should have left at year two, at year five and at year twenty, but I didn’t.  I waited until twenty-five years were spent trying to stand in winds that no one can truly stand in.  For now, I will live my life in the eye where the winds cannot touch me.  I will use the hurricane provisions that God has generously supplied and remember, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)”