Let The Storm Rage On!

I am home!!!  I am so excited to get to go to the meeting tonight!!!!  Yesterday I drove past the building where the meetings are held and I was just so excited at the thought that I would get to attend the meeting in person.  No technical difficulties, no other obstacles, I just get to go, be uplifted and be blessed by the spirit of the Lord and the strength of incredible women!!

I didn’t always feel this way about meetings and I have talked about this before.  Yesterday those feelings came flooding back of all the meetings that I’ve attended.  Regardless of how I felt at the meeting I always came away with something.  Some realization that I needed to work on me, or just the feeling of knowing that I was not alone, or to see a glimmer that recovery was possible.  I am so very grateful for the gift that others have given to me of sharing their stories.  That is a sacrifice and one that blesses the lives of others.  So, to you courageous women I am very thankful!  You have so blessed my life. 

This past week, before we left China, our city experienced a direct hit by a typhoon.  I had never experienced one and didn’t know what to expect.  We followed direction and prepared what we could.  I prayed and I received a comforting feeling that everything would be fine.  The storm was to hit in the early morning hours.  I expected loud winds, lightning and rain to wake me, but morning came and when I looked out my window all I saw was what looked like a thunderstorm.  Honestly, I was pretty disappointed.  I had seen pictures before of typhoons and I’d wanted to experience a really good storm.  So, I went back to bed.  In our apartment complex you  have to cross a courtyard to get to the main building.  We went out later and between us and the main building was a lot of storm damage!  In fact the storm was still raging and we couldn’t even hear it from our apartment!  Staff was at each door of the main building with boards holding them shut.  Security was outside patrolling to make sure no one was out in dangerous situations.  I could see the rain being blown sideways, trees down, damage to the buildings, but it had hardly touched our apartment!  Our apartment is in a separate building built in a little alcove next to a hill.  We were in the middle of the storm, but received great protection.

I thought about this in relation to the scripture of the house being built on the rock.  The rock provided protection in the midst of a raging storm! 
“And the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and did beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was built up on the rock” Matthew 7:25

But that wasn’t all.  In the verse just before the Savior tells that those he likens to the wise man are those that “heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them”.   Do.  That’s the secret!  Not just hear, not just know, not just experience, but do!  Dang it!  I didn’t want to “do”.  I can’t recall the number of times I read something about addiction recovery and thought, “I don’t want to do that” or “This doesn’t apply to MY situation” and then it did.  And at the times that I put my will behind God’s will I am protected from that storm.  It may rage around me but He provides the alcove, his loving arms, around me and you.

 

I know that the adversary is going to continue to work on me and my family.  I know that more storms will come, but in the mean time I am going to continue to prepare, recover and heal so that when that next wave comes I can look into the eye of the storm and say, "Let the storm rage on!  I know upon which rock I am built! And it is in Him that I put my trust!"

We can do this sisters!