Calm the Raging Seas….

I’m back from PA with loads of greatness to share about the weekend at Allume, but I just can’t go into all of that greatness without first sharing what woke me up in the middle of the night.  In fact…I’m going to pay the respects that are properly due and not even share it all in the same post.

At 3:30 am, I jolted awake in a panic.  My heart was pounding and I had to flip on the light to make sure that the place that my mind had just been as I slept wasn’t in fact my reality.  Whew….it wasn’t….for me, but it was for some.

My sister lives in New Jersey and all I could think about were the massive trees lining their yard with wind howling all around and water flooding over the banks of the river into homes there.  I thought about my new friend Darren who got stuck thousands of miles from his family (who are in Australia, no doubt worried that Daddy is stuck in the middle of one of the biggest storms in history.)  I thought about all of the incredible friends I made at Allume who couldn’t get home because of grounded flights, and I worried for my new friends who actually live in the pathway of this “Frankenstorm.”  I worried…..and panicked….and reminded myself that my God is big enough to calm the raging seas…even if he didn’t this time.

Four years ago, my family’s Christmas card picture was taken from this park that now looks just like a part of the river.

It was so real ya’ll….this dream I had.  I was at the beach in Florida with my family.  My husband often doesn’t come down until later because he has to work, so I was there with my parents and the boys.  The condo where we stay is right on the beach, and so when a hurricane warning was issued, my spirit went into get-out-of-dodge mode.  For some reason in the dream, my parents thought we’d be ok to stay, but it didn’t sit well with me, so I threw my boys in the car and started to leave the island.  The storm got worse and we eventually had to stop.  From the looks of things by the road, the random restaurant where we stopped seemed to be away from the edge, so we went in and took cover with the restaurant owner.  I looked out the window of the restaurant only to realize that it was even closer to the water’s edge than the condo where my parents were was.  I saw waves swelling to stories high and water already at the edge of the building.  We were worse off than if we’d never left at all.  I tried to call my husband, but the signal was down.  I clung to my 2-year-old who doesn’t know how to swim, and my 6-year-old knew that things weren’t good.  The water came in and the building began to fill up.  It was like that scene in Titanic where the ship levels are filling and people are trapped below.  We were about to drown…..

And then I woke up.  Panicked.  It wasn’t real.  It’s not real….it’s not real….calm down…pray.  And then I pulled out my computer because somewhere out there I knew that waters really were rising and buildings really were flooding.  And then I prayed.  And prayed some more.  I spent an hour in the middle of the night praying peace over those living a nightmare last night.  Prayed peace and supernatural wellness over babies carried by hand from the NYU hospital whose secondary generator failed.  Peace over parents who suddenly found themselves fighting for their tiny PICU and NICU babies’ lives.

Why didn’t God calm the storm?  Why is creation raging?  Why are homes lost and lives destroyed?

And the only answer that I can muster is that we live in a fallen world, but I do know…I KNOW THAT I KNOW that God is good….and he isn’t called Redeemer for nothing.

Join me in praying peace, blessings, and prosperity over the lives affected by this storm over the next few days and weeks?  I stand with the confidence that the God who created the seas can most certainly redeem the havoc that they wreak.

And tomorrow….tomorrow I’ll tell you about Allume.

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