in the storm

 We've been pretty familiar with storms in our household lately. I don't mean the thunder and lightning, wind and rain types of storms (though here in the Arkansas Ozarks, those are pretty common, too). I mean the types of storms that come from doing this whole "life" thing with a group of little people who are in that hard place of turning into big people while learning the hard lessons of what it means to be family, to grow up, and to just be human. Lately we've had some mornings that have made me want to crawl back in bed and pull the covers up over my head.

They haven't been big storms, as far as storms go. They aren't the kind of storms that have us hanging on for dear life, thinking we're about to go under. They are just the ones that seem to last so much longer than you ever thought possible, storms that drag on for so long that you start thinking you're going to give out, that even though the pressure isn't that intense you just can't hold up against it being so unrelenting.

When the disciples set out that night on the Sea of Galilee, I think that's the kind of storm they were facing. We're told that they had been rowing all night and yet still hadn't made it to the other side. Now, it's not that enormous of a body of water-- it's 8 miles wide, which definitely wouldn't be a walk in the park (can you say that about rowing?) for someone like me. For a bunch of fishermen who had spent their entire lives on the water, though... I'm sure the storm had to be unrelenting for them to only be half way across after rowing all night.

I've been in that place more times than I would like to admit. You know, the place where the storm has been going on for so long that you're starting to think it won't ever end. You've been straining to get through to the other side, but you aren't actually making any progress. You're stressed and tired and defeated and scared, and it feels like you're all alone in the middle of the storm.

We all know what happens next--we've heard the story of Jesus walking on the water and we know that the storm stopped when He stepped into the boat. But there's a promise tucked in there that I hadn't noticed before:

"Not long after, He sent His disciples out onto their boat to sail to Bethsaida on the other shore, and He sent the crowd away. After everyone had gone, He slipped away to pray on a mountain overlooking the sea. When evening came, the boat was out on the sea and He was alone on the land. He saw that the disciples were making little progress because they were rowing against a stiff wind."
~Mark 6:45-48a

Do you see it? It's easy for us to overlook (God's promises sometimes are), but look again at that last sentence:

"He saw that the disciples..."

The disciples were out in the middle of the storm, but Jesus saw them.

They weren't forgotten. They weren't abandoned to face the storm alone, even though they felt like they were.

So many times when I'm in the middle of a storm I feel like I'm facing it all on my own. I feel like I've been left to fend for myself, to fight a battle I'm not strong enough to fight. The thing is, though, Jesus doesn't abandon us. He's there, watching, waiting for the perfect time to step in and calm the storm.