Tornado Warning

I've been battling the same cold that Sarah had last week and that Andrew is threatening to get this week (please, not on preschool day!!), and so I did not sleep well last night. Oh, yeah, and also I had a tossing infant beside me from 2:30 am on, so that didn't help matters much, either. (We are such pushovers with him! It's part laziness and extreme exhaustion but also - at least for me - part treasuring that baby before he's way too little to snuggle beside me...)

Anyway, I got out of bed early (which is to say, on time) to get dressed and ready for the day, and that meant that I had time to get everyone else up and ready earlier than usual. For a few weeks now, P has been commuting to Southlake on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I am in charge of getting all three kids to their schools on those mornings. Since there is about 45 minutes between the time we drop Luke off at Covenant and the time the other kids need to be at preschool, I have gotten in the habit of getting Luke ready and then waking up the little kids just before we have to go; they ride with us in pjs and then get dressed and eat breakfast when we get back home. But this morning, things really fell in line so that we'd all be ready, and I had beautiful visions of being at preschool early enough to drop the kids off the minute the doors opened - and then enjoy an extra quarter hour of the day to myself.

But then, as I was getting everyone through the final stages of eating and getting dressed, the tornado sirens went off. Hooray!

(Thanks, Weather Channel app, for that visual...)

I grabbed the iPad, my Bible, a pacifier and a sippy cup, and I herded all the munchkins into our little closet under the stairs. Let me digress one moment to say that I am terrified of tornadoes. I used to dream of tornadoes so often that I was convinced that Death by Tornado was my certain fate. (True story.) Last spring was one miserable, long, awful, terror-filled line of storms for us in North Texas, and I have been dreading the return of this hateful season. 

However, this morning was different. For one thing, I have recently realized that my tornado dreams were probably more symbolic than prophetic, and I have not had one of them in quite some time. But even more than that, God has been working on my heart and on my fears so that I am increasingly learning to turn my face to Him whenever I feel afraid.

The past six months or so have contained one "unthinkable" thing after another for both myself and my family and friends. Many of these circumstances have sprung from physical suffering: cancers, illnesses, and even untimely deaths. Others have involved financial stress and instability, and some have included betrayals of the deepest kind. I have no doubt of the war being waged against Believers because I have personally been in battle alongside dear friends and family in the recent months. And I do not think that it is simply coincidental that the minute we recover from one battle, another is already raging. The enemy thinks he can wear us down and steal our hope.

But he cannot.

We have hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:19), and the Lord has been faithful during these times of darkness. In some of the circumstances, He has blinded us with His glorious healing powers, and in others, He has gently revealed the way His power can redeem "the years the locusts have eaten" (Joel 2:25). He has provided just what we need, time and again. But I am learning the wisdom of something my father-in-law once shared with us: often, the Lord provides just what we need, and no more. This morning's events were one tiny example of this: what I needed, when those sirens went off, was not to be worried about kids needing to eat or dress - or wake up - but to be ready: ready to grab a few things and head to shelter, cool and collected (or as coolly and collectedly as one might do those things while sirens blared). He knew that I did not need to face one of my biggest fears in the midst of frazzled chaos; instead, He timed things perfectly, as He always does. And when the "all clear" was given, we were able to grab backpacks, load up, and make it to both schools without too much delay. Had our schedule looked like it usually does, the morning would have played out in a drastically different fashion. But the important thing to note is that the Lord might've averted the storm altogether; instead, He saw fit to equip me for the storm.

And this has been the story for us, time and again. Our God is meeting all our needs according to His glorious riches (Philippians 4:19). This does not mean that He answers our financial poverty with wealth beyond measure or our physical impairments with immortality, but that He meets our needs so that we can learn to depend on Him - and then realize that He Himself is the cup running over, the blessing without end, the glorious riches.

I think often of that moment in Exodus 33 when God tells Moses that He will no longer accompany the Israelites because they are too stiff-necked and He might just kill 'em if He doesn't get some distance (loose translation). Moses pleads with Him, saying, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here" (33:15). Moses would rather forfeit the Promised Land than have to go there without the Presence of the Lord. I think I am finally beginning to better understand what it would mean to be willing to sacrifice my highest dreams and goals just for the blessing of His Presence. Like so many things in faith, it is an equation that doesn't add up; in the end, His Presence alone is worth more than anything of value in our lives. More than our very lives themselves.

Back in the "tornado closet," my hands are shaking a little as I check the radar on my phone, but my heart is calm with the peace of knowing that this storm is not a surprise to God. He is seated on His throne, exerting all power over every inch of creation (Revelation 4). But He is also living in me, walking me through each moment and promising to never leave me (Matthew 28:20). I can trust Him, this God of the Universe, with those whom I hold most dear. No matter what evil the enemy has planned for us, the Lord can redeem it for good, and He will give us the strength (or patience) we need to walk through the fire.