Blessings of the Storm

After so many years in Arizona one would think that the sudden, fierce storms that occur at this time of year would have become a matter of routine and would be endured with the safe expectation of the clear skies that would follow, as they usually do.  It took an exceptionally fierce rainstorm in Payson not long ago to focus my attention on the storm itself and not on what would follow it.

That storm was spectacular in its fury and spectacularly frightening at the same time.  We realized our utter helplessness in the face of it, but it served again as an example of God's involvement in my life this past year.

Again I realized that while clear skies 100% of the time might seem attractive on the surface, they could have easily dulled me into complacency and I would have missed so many life lessons that have challenged me to expand.  Those storms have taught me to embrace whatever I am given regardless of the comfort level I am experiencing.

"The heavens were filled with blackness and the earth was shaken by the voice of thunder.  It seemed as though that fair landscape was utterly changed and its beauty gone, never to return.....(but) if I had sat in the same place on the following day and said,'Where is that terrible storm, with all its terrible blackness?', the grass would have said, 'Part of it is in me', and the daisy would have said,'Part of it is in me', and the fruits and flowers and everything that grows out of the ground would have said, 'Part of the storm is incandescent in me.'"-Henry Ward Beecher (Streams in the Desert-Classic Edition).

I have experienced those powerful, daunting storms and can now say, with gratitude, "Part of the storm is in me".

"A blessing is in the storm, and there will be the rich fruitage in the 'afterward'."-Henry Ward Beecher.

"The Lord is slow to anger and great in power...His way is in the whirlwind and the storm....."-Nahum 1:3 (NIV).

On the health front:

Energy level seems to be improving and I have no complaints at all.

I'm really looking forward to the phone call telling me that my blood numbers are where they need to be and that I can eliminate the weekly blood draws and re-enter society.  Hopefully that's just a few weeks away😊