In the Eye of the Storm

 I’ve had a heavy heart for a couple weeks now. My struggle has not been for myself but as I’ve watched others facing the wind and waves of some of life’s  fiercest storms, I’ve felt desperation for them. My eyes shed tears for the pain and fear and struggles that life sometimes brings our way. It has felt heavy and heartbreaking and a little hopeless. I’ve asked, in my heart if not out loud, the whys that we all wonder when it just seems too much and not fair. All of us have been through storms, none of escape without some battle scars. It’s hard to live through them and it’s hard to watch others suffer and not have the answers or the help to offer them. 

I’ve also been studying in Job in my quiet time. It’s been tragically ironic in some ways to weep for friends who are facing life’s worst and read about Job, his heartache and his response to it. Job went through the deepest valleys. He lost everything that he valued from children, to health, to wealth, to honor. His friends rejected him and the enemy was relentless in trying to break Job’s spirit. Tonight, though, tonight I read something that gave me some hope. It’s a tiny little verse tucked in Job 40:6. It says that, “God addresses Job in the eye of the storm...” Don’t miss it! “In the eye of the storm”. It’s easy to see only the dark and scary and to feel overwhelmed and even a little hopeless when you’re in the middle of life’s storms. Those moments when your goal is just to not cry for a bit, those times when you can’t look up because your heart is just too heavy. Those are hard times. Dark times feel like God isn’t with us or at least we see no evidence of him. But, thank God for the “but”, Job heard the Lord right there in the eye of the storm, right there in the eerie moment of still and silence, maybe the scariest time of any storm, when he was in the middle of the worst. God spoke and Job survived. If you know the story, you know that before God spoke Job was only seeing and hearing and aware of the loss and suffering but, after God spoke, the storm remained only it didn’t break, instead, it strengthened him. He was restored and redeemed and blessed above and beyond.

We want the answers that we aren’t ready to see and understand. God’s ways are above beyond what we can comprehend, maybe just in this moment or maybe on this side of eternity. That truth doesn’t change the storm but maybe it gives us enough strength, enough hope, to look up to our Heavenly Father, to listen for his voice, even in the midst of the worst. A friend of mine the other day said that God is still writing our stories. I like that. We don’t know our endings, just like Job and his friends didn’t know his. We have to keep living, keep trusting, keep seeking the One who turns all the storms into something good.