Tornado...

I am blessed.

While I coast on easy street, I sometimes forget just how blessed I am. I'm not saying that life is always a bowl of cherries. Of course not. Occasionally there's a bump in the road, a blip on the radar or an overcast day in an otherwise sunny stretch of weather. I've dealt with health issues, heartache, job loss and even death.

But I am blessed.

Sometimes I just seem to forget it. Interestingly enough, the fact is that at just the moment when life is as good as it gets, at just that time when I forget my true focus, the tornado strikes, wreaking havoc to my settled, comfortable world. It seems to strike without notice, replacing peace and calm with worry and upheaval.

I am blessed.

Why?

Because when worry threatens to crush me under its load and when upheaval thrashes against peace, God whispers to me.  "I won't give up on you. I won't leave you. Strength! Courage!" (Joshua 1:5, The Message).

This morning as we worshiped on the Pigeon River, God confirmed his whisper with a visual reminder. On a calm river, under partly cloudy skies, God gave me this "tornado in the clouds" visual:

Within a half hour, the "cloud tornado" dissipated and God provided the visual of his promise:

When trials come, God is there. He won't give up on me. He won't leave me. Loving Jesus doesn't guarantee me a life on Easy Street. On the contrary, I get to share in the suffering. Whatever hardship I deal with is small potatoes compared to Jesus' suffering. And more astonishing is the fact that His suffering was for me! A sweet passage is Romans 8:15-17 which comforts my soul (here from The Message):

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!