Handling Storms
Board up the windows, empty the basement, and head for the hills: there is a storm coming.
This is the mood, of course, across Southwest Florida as Hurricane Ian bears down, set to wreak multi-billion dollar damage upon a typically serene Florida coastline. Our hearts and prayers go out to those whose lives and livelihoods are in danger, especially the poor and vulnerable who most often fare worst.
But the idea of weathering a storm is not just a challenge facing Floridians.
In our own places, in our own ways, each of us is weathering a storm or two of our own. We have bodies that are ailing, friends who are suffering, jobs that don't fulfill, and relationships that are far from perfect. And no one is immune to the general societal apathy, negativity, discouragement, and anxiety that pervades our every day.
How do we endure our storms?
This was at the heart of a question the disciples brought to Jesus in this Sunday's gospel when they asked him to, “Increase our faith!"
Jesus gives a response that assumes the disciples already know the answer - which is to draw closer to Jesus:
Make God a bigger part of our lives.
Adopt God's point of view over our own, seeking to see the world through the eyes of the Divine.
When Jesus responds to the disciples by asking them to command a 'mulberry tree to throw itself into the sea,' he gives them something absurdly impossible.
Well guess what?
Having faith that our storms will pass, may also seem absurdly impossible.
But, how often are we reminded, that with God, nothing is impossible.
No matter what we’re facing, we are not here alone, we are not forgotten, we are part of a bigger picture, well-known and well-loved by our Creator - and that our end will always be in God.
As my young daughter once reminded me, ’There’s no place we can go where God isn’t.'
So may God grant our wish, to increase our faith, that the storms we face may be weathered with grace, that we might live on to help bring others through theirs.
