The Heavens Shook
Composition Posted: 470 words
When I sit outside, and feel the wind lick at my face, hear the thunder as the seat beneath me shakes, and watch the lightning skate across the cracks in the gray mass of clouds overhead, there is little room for worry. We love to be reminded of our own smallness.
There is a storm rolling in, deep thick clouds gradually taking over the sunset and blue sky. I watch the sky turn gradient along the solid horizon: gray to black, punched with purple every time the sheet lightning flashes. On my right: streetlights, a highway, a shopping center, fading away into a neighborhood. On my left: blackness, wildness, and the terrible depths of beauty. The porch shakes and the sun and lightning unfade the clouds into rich, dark, colors.
The wind feels like it will unhinge my porch and whirl it along in the storm. I almost wish that it does: I long to be caught up in it all. In this bigness, I feel my own smallness, and I look to the One who stirred the storm with his fingertips. Wet hits my cheek as the trees sway and the power inches closer. I am not afraid of it: there is a familiar feel to the tremors and blasts. The lightning is constant, lighting my page more than the dim light of the candle beside me. Reality seems dim in comparison to the dark brightness of the storm that surrounds me.
The rain is sheeting down so thick I can only see the blur of distant lights, and I am alone with the storm at last. Even my car, down below in the parking lot, is a dark haze of grey. I huddle close to the wall as the wind flies and dances around me. My tiny candle, sheltered from the storm by the lantern around it, dances and sings in a tiny facsimile of the storm around it. I imagine to myself that the candle keeps me warm. Now I barely see except for glimpses amid the flying drops. The storm is right on top of me, spraying my face and staining my pages. I breathe in deeply.
In the Old Testament, God sent a wind and a fire, but he was found in the whisper. In the storm, I hear his whispering. He calls me with a thought that leaps in my soul. Like a bolt, clear to light all the sky, he has come. He is known. He has not hidden himself, but walked among us. The sun has set, and darkness surrounds all around, but tomorrow the sun will rise again.
This is what I remember as I inhale the powerful night and thank the One who shakes the skies, yet still reached down to love me, and you, and all of us.
Andrew