Aqua Entry #2

It's raining outside.

A lot of storms bring rain.

Storms destroy, wreck, wreak havoc, and are generally frowned upon.

On September 9, 1989, I was five years old. I woke up and reached over to touch my "touch lamp," (I loved that thing, it had three different brightness settings, based on the number of times you touched it) and the lamp didn't work. I called over to Jessica (we shared a room back then), and she didn't know why it wasn't working. Mom and Dad came in our room at this point and Dad said, "Y'all been missing the show!"

I looked out the window to see pieces of our siding, limbs, leaves, dirt, and water flying through the air. I can remember it vividly.

Hurricane Hugo was a class 5 hurricane, which caused over $10 Billion worth ($4.2 Billion in SC) of damage. By the time it got to my house, the winds were between 57-81 mph. We were out of school for a week. We grilled frozen pizzas.

There are still trees behind my parents' house that the entire root ball are unearthed, because of Hugo (faithful readers, you know how I feel about trees).

One of my favorite memories was watching my uncle "shower" in the rain falling from the barn roof. My uncle Sammy always ran a mile in the mornings. After his morning run, he jogged down to the barn and let the rain run off from the tin roof cool him off.

Obviously, Hugo was BAD.

...but...

With Hugo, came rain.

Without rain, you can't grow crops, you can't take showers and wash your car, you can't go fishing, you can't go swimming... life as we know it (and quite literally, on a grander scale) stops!

Rain equals regrowth... regrowth is LIFE!

Sometimes in life, life sucks (sorry if that language offends, it's not my intent; I simply am making the point that the word "stinks" or "lousy" aren't strong enough).

The phrase "when it rains, it pours" is never applied when we're in a drought. We only use that term when we want to complain about how awful our life seems.

Maybe the reason God brings a storm is to teach, comfort and cause regrowth.

The story of Jesus calming the sea, is to prove a point. These guys that have been following Him around are out on the sea and all hail (pun intended) is breaking loose (I don't know if there was actual hail, but it was necessary to make the joke, please don't kill me over poor hermeneutics). So, these guys start freaking out and looking for Jesus. Get this, Jesus is ASLEEP! Yeah, He's asleep... for a reason. They wake Him up, and He asks a question of their faith. Then, he calms the storm, no big deal. But then, the whole purpose of the story (which we miss so many times) happens.

The disciples turn to one another and say, "Who is this, that even the WINDS and the WAVES obey Him?" This was a reference back to the Old Testament when YHWH parted the Red Sea so that the freed slaves could cross. These guys recognized that Jesus had the power to control storms.

If He did it then, He can do it now.

My aunt prayed once that God would use her. The next day, she went for a routine check-up at the doctor's office. She had cancer.

A guy who went to NGU with me said that he was scared to become a Christian, because he thought God would use kill him in a car wreck to teach other people about God. Jamie died in a car wreck.

Another guy I went to NGU with lost his family, home, car... everything material due to a drug addiction. When he was attending NGU he was living in a tent.

...but...

My family is closer now then we ever were before, 30 people made decisions about their relationship with Christ, and, last I heard, Mike was reunited with his family.

Storms are bad. Storms can bring rain. Rain brings regrowth. Regrowth is life.

In a storm? Get ready to grow!