Laughing in Life’s Storms
They released my six-year-old early from school because the forecast predicted a storm.
My daughter mentioned it as soon as she came home, but then she forgot. She went outside to play in the sandbox. Five minutes later, she tore across the yard and beat her fists against the French door.
I opened it, and she gasped, “It’s going to storm!”
Raindrops sprinkled the cement patio. The clouds churned gray. I ushered her inside, and she wouldn’t stop talking about the storm, even though I promised she was safe. I relish the earth’s loamy smell and the sky’s saturated colors before a storm breaks, so once my husband came home, I strapped the baby in the carrier and went for a walk. I had just reached the pines near where we want to build when more raindrops fell.
I covered the baby’s head with the carrier’s hood and kept walking. The rain fell harder. Lightning flashed a mile away. I glanced back at our warehouse across the field, blurred by the deluge, and started to run. The baby laughed. She belly-laughed as my movements jiggled her up and down. I cut through our spindly orchard and laughed, too.
It was one of the sweetest moments I’ve had with my third baby girl, and afterward, I couldn’t help comparing my daughters’ different viewpoints.
One child feared raindrops. One child laughed while lightning flashed above our heads. Regardless, the storm was coming. Which child enjoyed her day more?
Yesterday, I was reminded of another storm. My wonderful editor said we should be finished editing my fifth novel before my husband’s June scans. Her thoughtfulness and consideration of my family deeply touched me, and yet as I stared at those two words—June scans—I didn’t experience that predictable, lightning bolt of fear.
I remember, in Wisconsin, two of our dearest friends, Marissa and Joel, going to the front of the church’s small congregation and announcing that an ultrasound had revealed their baby was dead.
To the best of my memory, Joel then read from the book of Daniel:
Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”
They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”
He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”
Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”
So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.
Joel concluded by saying he and Marissa would continue praising God regardless if they were delivered from the fire or if they had to withstand the flames. I practically vibrated in the seat while listening to him speak. My mind couldn’t wrap around those words; that declaration that God was good regardless of how their story played out.
Our friends lost their baby boy, and yet now we exchange pictures and milestone updates of our children: ours a girl, theirs another boy. The two only a few months apart.
I often think of their testimony—their story—while contemplating how our own story’s going to play out. In two months, we’ll know if my husband’s brain tumor is stable, has grown, or is completely gone.
In two months, we’ll know the next step our life’s going to take.
But regardless of the forecast, regardless of the predicted storm, this is one thing I know: Jesus loves my husband; He loves our little family, and therefore, I’m going to rest in the peace that He turns all things for good, regardless of what direction our journey may take.
How are you going to rest in your “storms” this week?