The other day I was driving one of my kids to practice and the weather had turned super stormy, super quickly. Living in the south, you learn to adapt to swift changes in the weather due to raging thunderstorms in warm weather. Many of these storms are accompanied by a tornado, as was the case the other night while I was driving. I left my house and began driving into clouds, into rain and into dark skies. When I say dark skies, I mean that it was dark out at 7:30pm when it is normally still daylight. The rain came in sheets, downward, sideways, any which way–so much rain that my windshield wipers could not keep up even on the fastest speed. The only help in seeing the road was the hazard lights from the vehicle in front of me. Entering the on ramp to the highway, no blacktop could be seen. All that was normally visible of the road was covered in green… leaves, branches, debris. Once on the highway, hail began to pound on our car and in an effort to save our rooftop, I pulled under an overpass for a few minutes to wait for the calm. While driving, my daughter worried that I could not see. I assured her that I could see, and even when I couldn’t see ahead of me as I normally was able to, I could still navigate through the storm. Later, we found out that there actually were a couple of tornados that had touched ground in the area. Were they near where we were? Yes. Had we been in one of them? Probably not. But who knows for sure? This leads me to question, as we navigate the stormy weather in our lives, how do we respond? When life gives us heavy rains so thick that we cannot see, do we trust in God’s unfailing guidance and carry on in the midst of the storm? Yes, storms and troubled times in our lives are sometimes placed there to give us pause. In pausing, do we keep our faith that God is the master of our storm as well as our sun? It is hard to remember, but trials bring new opportunites to life and new opportunities for God to work in our lives. There are days of rain and thunder, and there are days of rainbows and sun. Too much of one thing is a curse not a blessing. Keep faith in the storm, even when you cannot see beyond the rain. The broken road, the rejection letter, the “no” seem like the dark cloud when actually, the sun is just waiting to push through and show you a yellow brick road, a golden ticket, a “yes” to the right thing. When all the world is seemingly under the gray cover, turn your umbrella upside down and use it as a boat. The places it will take you are far greater than you can see from the where you are standing.