I was driving home from Manhattan around 8 o'clock which is still fairly light outside this time of year. These analogies just ran through my head while I was trying to make it home without crashing into the ditch because I couldn't see the road and other things. It got me thinking about how what I was experiencing was like going through a trial in life.
Darkness creeps in slowly but then it overtakes you.
I thought about hard times and how they don't just come instantly but sort of creep into your life slowly. But within no time at all you are enveloped by this darkness that is so powerful you wonder if you will ever see the other side where light could exist. While driving Anna pointed out that there was one cloud that was "white" while the others were pitch black. She couldn't understand why it looked so bright when the rest of the sky was very dark. I told her that the sun was hitting it and reflecting light and that was why it looked different. Draw your own conclusion.
Sometimes all you can do is hold on to the steering wheel and pray that you won't fly off the road.
The sheer force of the wind last night made it necessary to turn off the radio and fully focus on just keeping my car on the road. It took great concentration just to SEE the road.
When you can't keep it together you just have to pull over and wait it out a while.
I got to where I was only 15 minutes from home. And dryness. And safety. But I couldn't go on because it was too difficult to see. So I had to pull off the road in a safe place and wait out the worst. After I got going again I realized that we really hadn't sat there for very long. But while we were sitting it felt like we would never get home.
There are other people dealing with the same problem.
I didn't meet too many cars or have more than one or two that came up behind me, but there were other people on the road so I wasn't going through the storm alone. At one point I kind of fixed my eyes on a car that was ahead of me. It felt good to be able to see his tail lights and know that I wasn't alone.
Once you are home and safe it is easy to forget the focus and strength it took to get where you are.
It is easy to start to relax and enjoy the ease of life after coming out of a storm. But last night I needed to call and warn my daughter (who was out) that she needed to be careful if she was heading out into the storm I had just survived. I've been realizing lately that spiritually I have come through some mighty great storms. I don't want to go back to experiencing those same things but I sure miss the determination of my spirit to stay focused on Jesus and to lay back in His arms and enjoy it when I was safely "home" again.
So. That is what I'm thinking about today.
Awesome! Just awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Shelly! That means a lot coming from you!
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