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The Storm Within
I’ve been laboring over this for several days because it feels like a very awkward confession to make. Last weekend, we had an epic winter storm, and I nearly lost my mind. At least 18” of snow came down over the course of 24 hours, starting as a soft dry powder and turning to small ice missiles that pelted our windows for hours. The wind started early on – in the middle of the night Saturday – and it battered the house until mid-day Sunday. It was relentless, stopping for only a few seconds at a time, pummeling us on every side and causing a bizarre noise that sounded like a giant wind-up toy echoing into our chimney over and over.
I tried to distract myself by picking up one of my worn out Jane Austen novels, which is about the most soothing reading material there is. When that failed, I tried to stay busy sweeping the floors, cleaning the stove, doing laundry, and mopping up the puddles left by the snow blowing in through the gaps in the bottoms of the doors. Finally I lost all energy and determination and collapsed into my big chair in the den. Unfortunately, that left me facing our bank of windows and the impenetrable wall of whitish gray outside, so thick and flat that you couldn’t tell if it was day or night. I could focus on nothing but the overwhelming, oppressive, haranguing wind. It felt like the snow and wind and ice were fighting the house, fighting the light, fighting me. It made me nervous in the pit of my stomach and there was no logic to it. All I could do was close my eyes and wait for those few seconds of reprieve from the wind, and grasp at them when they came. Right then, I could hope that the storm would end; the rest of the time it seemed like an eternal force that would last longer than I would.
My friend texted to check on us and I told her that I thought the wind was making me go crazy. “Why does it make you so edgy?” she asked me. I had no answer.
Now, days later, I think I know. It was primal, totally uncontrolled. Our big, sprawling house, anchored to the landscape by all its masonry work and thick stone columns, felt like it could be pulled apart at any moment. Everything around me felt at risk of being broken and torn, and the forces of the storm were so powerful that they seemed to be tearing at my insides, too.
Day or night? I finally realized that this storm was so unsettling because it made a lie out of so much of everyday life. We control everything – or we think we do. The temperature in the house, the temperature in the car – we even use a heat lamp to control the temperature in our chicken coop. We have umbrellas and rain boots so we don’t get wet, bug spray so we don’t get bit, sunscreen so we don’t get burned. We have fast food and microwaves so we don’t have to put time or energy into preparing food, we can get fresh strawberries at the grocery store in January…when it comes to our comfort and convenience, we’ve found ways to circumvent nature at every turn.
But then you face something truly elemental, and you realize how ridiculous all of that is.
The book of Job makes it plain when God asks, “Have you entered the treasury of snow, or have you seen the treasury of hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? By what way is light diffused, or the east wind scattered over the earth?” (Job 38:22-24). Psalms tells us the same thing. “He gives snow like wool; He scatters frost like ashes; He casts out His hail like morsels; who can stand before His cold? He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow and the waters flow.” (Ps. 146:16-18).
Facing this wildness and uncertainty is fundamentally unsettling. There is nothing we can make with our own hands that we can hold up against it to shield ourselves. It feels like a shaking from within.
We are small and vulnerable, and the idea that we’re in control of anything is a terrible illusion. Nature, the seasons, the weather and the elements, all tell a different story, and they do not answer to us.
The day after. Job 37:4-13, “…He thunders with His majestic voice, and He does not restrain them when His voice is heard. God thunders marvelously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend. For He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth’…He seals the hand of every man, that all men may know His work…From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind, and cold from the scattering winds of the north. By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen…He causes it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.”
Sometime in the afternoon, the storm must have used up whatever was fueling it; one minute it was all fury, and the next, fat snowflakes were drifting lazily down into the backyard. I breathed. In the library, I turned the rocking chair around to face out the window that overlooks the back pasture, but the overgrown juniper hedge was so piled with snow that I could see nothing beyond it. I took up my Jane Austen again, and rocked and watched the snowflakes spin their slow circles. I sat there for a long time, letting the quietness sink in and replace some of what the storm had taken from me.
I’d like to tie this post up in a neat little bow, but I can’t. Now that I understand why the storm affected me like it did, I’d like to think I’ll handle it better next time, but I don’t know that I will. There are some things on this earth that don’t get any easier, and this may be one of those things for me. But – until next time – I’ll cozy up to the fire and let it warm me, and try to make peace with the fact that every storm eventually ends.
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What’s In A Name?
When I started this blog in 2014 (I can’t believe it was that long ago!), I called it “The Renewable Family.” I can’t even remember where that inspiration came from, but I can say what it means to me now, and why I’d name it that all over again.
Left to its own devices, nature renews itself. Watch the seasons, observe the water cycle; death, decay, rebirth and growth are continually happening all around us. But human beings – our spirits and souls – are a different matter entirely. Speaking for myself, I can run the spectrum from patient and kind to completely unreasonable, usually on the same day. And the downhill slide can start from something as trivial as how many pieces of my kids’ dirty laundry I have to turn right-side-out before I can even load the washing machine.
Sometimes the daily demands of life get the best of me: high-maintenance horses that I have to watch like a hawk; the brooding and unnerving silence of a teenage daughter; continuously feeding chickens, cats, dogs, horses, people; struggling through the ironically-named “How To Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons” for the third time because math is Evelyn’s thing, and reading is not. If you add anything of real significance to that like concerns over a loved one’s health, an unexpected disaster with a client’s remodel, or a friend’s heartache over her father’s unexpected death, I can become just about incapacitated by worry and negativity.
Left to my own devices, I get worse, not better.
We have to CHOOSE to renew ourselves “so we do not lose heart.” Because “outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day,” 2 Cor. 4:16. But that renewal is far from automatic. We can so easily be overcome by fear, frustration, despair, and anger. But the antidote, which is much harder, is to “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12).
Our relationships, particularly within our own families, are not automatically renewed either. We have to put down the phone, turn off Netflix, and make eye contact. We have to sit quietly with that other person long enough that we’re still there when they’re ready to talk. We have to show up for things – inconvenient things, boring things, awkward things, sad things. We have to be willing to be the first one to say “I’m sorry”, even if we only halfway mean it, and to smile even if we’re still a little mad. We have to be willing to love enough to be hurt – because we all get hurt eventually. And then we have to be willing to keep loving.
This is The Renewable Family because it’s never a done deal. We are always right smack in the middle of the possibility of being overcome or being renewed. The choice is before us every moment: what are we going to take in? What are we going to value? What are we going to nurture?
So tonight, as I’m totally exhausted and collapsed into my big paisley chair, I’m going to smile as I smash myself against the arm to make room for the cat sitting on the cushion beside me, Miranda curled up on the ottoman begging me to rub her back, and the dog trying to squish himself beside her. I’ll be lulled into sleepiness as the cacophony of sounds of Steven playing pinball in the next room competes with The Great British Baking Show on television. Then I’ll rally my energy to read Evelyn one more chapter of Harriet the Spy, and I’ll nag until someone reads a chapter from the Bible and eventually we’ll all say our prayers.
And my prayer is this: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me,” Ps. 51:10-12.
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Staying Creative While Staying Home
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10 Places You Should Visit This Summer
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- Peach
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Friday Favorite Finds
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Use your headings!
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How to Boost Traffic to Your Website
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Use your headings!
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My New Home Office
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Use your headings!
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An unordered list example:
- one
- two
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