Feel the Power

I awoke last night, for some unknown reason. I have to tell you that I have no trouble falling asleep when I first go to bed. I am usually out within a minute of my head hitting the pillow. However when I wake in the middle of the night it is a different story. I usually flip and flop for hours trying to get back to sleep. Because this keeps my wife awake, I opted to go to the couch and try to get some sleep. That way, even if I couldn’t sleep, maybe she could.

I quickly discovered what woke me. It was a storm approaching. My wife was already awake but I decided to stay on the couch for a while to let her get back to sleep. As I began trying to relax, I saw a flash of lightening and then another. I knew this was going to make it hard to fall asleep but I closed my eyes and tried anyway. Very shortly there was another flash and I was amazed to see it even though my eyes were shut. That lightning was still miles away and the flash had to travel that distance. It also traveled through rain and trees, then through the window blinds, and then through my eyelids. Talk about awesome power.

At this point I felt I only had one option: pull the blanket over my head. This was something that I used to do as a child but for a different reason. When I was young, lightening storms frightened me so whenever we had one, I would get totally under my blanket for protection. I know this doesn’t work but it worked for me. I felt safe anyway. And it worked last night too. After pulling the blanket up over my head, the light was blocked so the storm no longer bothered me. Now I could get some sleep. Or so I thought.

A few minutes passed and the storm got closer and as it did, I began to hear the thunder that went along with the lightning. The thunder began getting louder and louder and it was keeping me from sleeping. I can beat this storm I thought so I rolled over and sandwiched my head between two pillows. Ahhhh silence at last. Well not total silence but it was muffled enough that I began drifting off to sleep. Finally I would get the sleep I so desperately needed.

Well the storm didn’t let up and in fact it got even closer. Before long it was right on top of us and along with the lightning and thunder came the aftershock. So even though I had the light and noise blocked out, the house shook after every lightning bolt. I finally gave up and just lay there and watched the storm. I knew I would be exhausted but there was no use fighting it anymore. The storm won. So I lay there waiting on the next bolt of lightning to light up the sky. I waited, and waited and waited but it had ended. And then the rain started. It began raining like there was no tomorrow. And the sound of the rain put me to sleep. This morning, when I woke up, the storm was almost gone and the rain had finished falling.

As I lay there last night, I thought about the awesome power that is in a storm like this. So much power that even inside my house, under a blanket and pillows, I was able to feel it. It’s a power that you just can’t hide from. Even if a person were blind and deaf, they would still feel it. There is no use fighting something that powerful, you just have to learn to accept it. I am no longer afraid of storms like this but I do respect and acknowledge their power.

This morning, I heard on the news that some people were not so fortunate in this storm. To our south, it left a path of destruction. So please take a moment of your day to pray for those whose lives were touched in this storm.

Have a Blessed Day,
Greg

Photo from the internet