No one would ever have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.

(Charles Kettering, 1876 – 1958)

Hurricane Earl and its potential for damage is all over the news.  The people in The Outer Banks of North Carolina are preparing for Earl to hit landfall at midnight.  People on the East Coast as far as Cape Cod are watching to see what path the storm will follow.

The hurricane makes me think of all the storms in our lives that we have weathered and how many more storms we may still have ahead of us. There are physical storms like hurricanes, relationship storms, money storms, job storms.  There are the storms caused by illness and injury and aging.  There are the storms we face when our bodies won’t work right or our minds overwhelm us.

In most cases there is no way to stop the storm from coming.  All we can do is ride it out and pray for the Lord to help us.  Remember the story of Jesus’ disciples in a boat on the Sea of Galilee?   After several hours a storm came up.  Because they were in a small boat in the midst of a great storm the disciples were terrified.  It was only after Jesus walked across the water and climbed into the boat with them that the storm ceased.

This story reminds me that, with the Lord’s help, we can weather every storm.  I wish it meant that there will be no more storms.  It doesn’t.  I wish it meant that we wouldn’t be afraid.  It doesn’t.  It means simply that if God is in the boat with us we can weather any storm.

Divine help in the storms of our lives is a sacred gift.  I wish you countless sacred gifts.