the storm

April 14, 2020

Chattanooga endured some pretty severe weather this past weekend.  It was significant enough to rip off roofs and destroy homes and schools and it took seven souls with its midnight fury.   My morning after started too early with some chirps of the cell phone, which I took off of the usual “do not disturb” mode incase of overnight emergencies from my neighbors.  They waited until dawn after a sleepless night to start checking in on each other.  Chirp: “Everybody ok over there?” Chirp: “yes”. Chirp: “Power’s out. Boil water for coffee”.  Chirp: “like” chirp chirp chirp. 

Out side though, all’s quiet on the eastern ridge. 

We have been quietly waiting here for a month now.  There’s nowhere to go, except Daktari who goes to the hospital every day.  And that is even a miraculous calm, a tense and anxious calm, a quiet waiting- not yet after the storm. 

Easter, Resurrection Sunday, rather was so unusual this year.  We worshipped the Risen Lord in a tiny woodland cemetery and sang the songs to remind each other that Death is Ended.  Now here on Easter Monday, we are left reeling from the storm of the reckless raging fury.  I came to look for my Lord, where IS HE? 

Giant willow oaks lay uprooted like tipped over wine glasses in the park.  Big old beauties, belly up and broken, took with them a Celtic knot of power lines.  They leave us in the dark, "powerless" or so we think. We go survey the damages.  Let us also survey the wondrous cross and consider the work done on that tree.  My richest gain I count but loss...

My baby girl, now nine years old came barreling in boundless and free, like the deep, deep love of Jesus.  She came to announce with all joy and truth what she’d just discovered. “LIFE!” In her woodland fort she found a robin nest.  And in the nest, she found baby birds!  There on the day after the storm, they haven’t even opened their eyes yet, all blue and skinny.  But they sense the shadow of her presence and they open their mouths to receive whatever grace is given to them.

Baby birds in a tiny nest after an oak turning power passed over them.  Indeed His eye is on the sparrow, and the robin. And our eyes will stay fixed on Him.  We pray for the end of the pandemic.  God is able.  Psalm 105:4"Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always"