The Storm

You know that feeling you get when you can feel a storm coming?  It's out there.  It's inevitable.  The clouds are dark and ominous and the air is thick.  And you have to decide at some point whether to go through it or run for cover.


That's how I felt Saturday night...like a very small, very unprepared boat heading into a raging sea.  (It didn't help that there was an actual storm that night and the clouds actually did look dark and ominous.)  For anyone else, this particular thing probably would have been insignificant, but for me, it was BIG.  I knew the storm was coming and I knew there wasn't anything I could do about it.  I knew that running for cover wasn't an option this time.  I needed to make myself go right through it.  But I think I also knew that I would make it out safely on the other end...somehow.

 ...it was that middle, stormy part I was concerned about.  

I got on my knees Saturday night and begged for help.  And then I got back there again first thing Sunday morning.  And sometime between 6:30 - 8:30am all of my anxious worrying was replaced with calm assurance and quiet confidence.  There's a song or a poem or something that says, "sometimes He calms the storm and sometimes He calms the child."  Today, it wasn't the storm that was calmed.  I definitely felt it raging around me.  But there was a protection that I felt throughout the day that kept me from being my typical, uncalm self.  And after several hours, I realized that I had made it through the day, not beaten and discouraged and barely hanging on, but joyful and confident and with a renewed faith in the power of the Atonement and the very definite assistance from a kind and merciful Heavenly Father that comes when we ask for it.      


Storms happen all the time for me.  Sometimes I can feel them coming and other times they catch me off guard and knock me off my feet.  But with them, there is always some lesson learned, some greater confidence secured, and always an assurance that no matter how much the storm rages, I am never alone.  I know that my Heavenly Father is aware of my every need.  I know that the Savior loved me enough to sacrifice His life for me.  And I know that there is an undeniable power in the Atonement to make up the difference for all the many things that I lack.   I'm grateful to have made it through yet another storm.