Stronger Than Each Storm

Stronger than Each Storm

Christ of the mysteries, can I trust You to be stronger than each storm in me?

(from Brendan Litany in Celtic Daily Prayer)

Storms are rising all the time.  Most of them start simply enough:  a thought, an interaction.  And then it deepens.  A swirl of emotion gathers in my chest and starts to churn.  Gradually it gains more and more power.  The ideas multiply.  The thoughts tangle.  Internal storms can easily take over.  They reframe the story.  They drench counter claims, beating down any forward movement.  Battered, I work to row myself out and find I’m moving nowhere.  

Storms can pop up at a moment’s notice.  When someone says no to an invitation I expected them to accept, I question what is wrong with me.  Am I too pushy?  Not fun enough?  I don’t even consider that their answer has nothing to do with me, but their life realities.  As I repeat the lies, they become planted deeply within and I cry, fretting that I’m losing friends and family.  I wonder what I can do and become obsessed.  

Or, storms can emerge over time.  When I walked with both of my parents through cancer diagnoses, treatments, and death, fear gradually wrapped around my lungs, my abdomen, my brain over the months and years.  After each doctor’s appointment or scan a new cloud of fear would take its place.  Not wanting to worry my parents, I kept it all deep within.  Thoughts of being alone, of our family not surviving.  Sadness over losing the stories that still had yet to be written with both of them.  Some days I couldn’t see the good that was present for the fear and sadness that were swirling around. 

Is God stronger than these internal storms?  I often live as if God is a minor player sitting on the sidelines.  As if he can have no control over what’s going on inside of me.  At times I recognize Jesus with me as a comforter.  But I don’t really think about him doing anything about the storms themselves.  I’m like the disciples in the storm on the lake:

And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.  But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.  And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  He said to them “Why are you so afraid?  Have you still no faith?”  And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  - Mark 4: 37-41

They cried to him for help, but didn’t really expect him to stop the storm in the manner that revealed he had power over nature.  Similarly, I don’t believe Jesus has power over the storms inside of me.  I don’t trust.

How can this change?  Thinking and fretting about not trusting could turn into another storm.  It’s time to cry out and admit that these storms are beyond me.  Even understanding how Jesus could calm them is a mystery.  The words of Jesus crying out to the storm - be still - reordered the air and the water creating out of the wind and waves a clear sky and calm lake.  How is this possible?  I don’t know.  But it is. 

This story and prayer are not grounded in the logical, material world that I can understand, but in a new imagination.  

In the internal storms the repetition of words and ideas gives them power.  But what if a new Word could break in?  What if God could reorder my imagination?  Often I imagine the worst case because I reason that then the actual outcome will have to be better than I expect.  Yet, all the negative what if’s running around my mind stir up new storms.  I recently heard someone speak about turning around those what if’s and making them positive.  Bringing God into these wonderings.  This would slow down the storm.  Asking the new questions starts to reframe the storm.  Starts to lessen its power. 

In these rewordings, God doesn’t do away with the elements that turned into the storm, but redirects them.  He can unwind the tangled mess.  In this I can see new ways to be with people.  I can celebrate my parents’ lives and legacy.  He covers all in his power and I stand back in awe.