A few weeks ago a storm passed through my area overnight, and I slept right through the whole thing! I was completely unaware of the lightning, thunder, and wind happening all around me. Everything had been calm when I went to bed, and there were no weather alerts to wake me on my phone. Thankfully, it was not a life-threatening storm, but I’ve experienced enough storms living in the American South to know what it could have been.
The next morning, my husband informed me that I had slept through it all without even a stir. “Well, it couldn’t have been that bad,” I replied, “or I would have known about it.” I like to think I’m a little more in control and not just sleeping like a log. But over the next couple of days, we noticed a few things not working around the house. The landline phone had quit working. The outside lights did not come on at night. A phone charger had stopped charging, and the alarm clock next to where I sleep had a faint ringing noise coming from it. These were minor nuisances, but all of them were things that had stopped working after the storm. We realized lightning must have hit our house overnight and we had not been aware.
I knew then that it could have been much worse, and not much I could have done about it. What remained behind was a small glimpse of a storm that had passed through unknowingly. It was like seeing a fingerprint, showing us that God had been here protecting us and our home while the storm raged all around. We had been protected from the worst. How many other times had God protected our family and home when we did not know it? How many other storms are around us every day that God fights for us and we are not even aware? And while I don’t understand all the inhumanity and pain taking place in our world today, I do know that I would rather have God with me during the storms of life than to go through them without God. Because not having God with me is a much scarier thought. God can be mighty and silent, but always working. This is God. Only when we get to heaven will we fully see and understand just how many storms God took care of while we were sleeping.
