HAILSTORM
[written for a friend in need]
Hail-storms of hurt-words
Come barreling down;
Warm rays of sunlight
No longer found.
Unexpected and whirling;
Hardened and cold;
Invaded by dark clouds
Angry and bold.
A bruise here, a scar there
Salty rain-tears descend
Lord, strengthen me;
Lead me to the storm’s end.
Hurricane Gustav is currently at Category 4 level, with sustained winds at 145mph, and it's continuing to strengthen. If it reaches 155mph, it will be a Category 5 storm, just like the infamous Katrina.
My brother has been walking around the house for the past two days, randomly bursting into choruses of the song, "Blinded by the Light". I'm really not sure why, quite frankly. I didn't even know he liked that song. In fact, I didn't even know he knew that song existed, let alone knew the words to it.
Actually, I don't think he does honestly know the words to it. Because he just keeps singing the same line, over and over and over and over again, getting progressively louder at each repetition. "Blinded by the light...Blinded by the light! BLINDED BY THE LIGHT!! BLIIIIINDED BY THE LIIIIIIGHT!!!!!"
(Have I mentioned that the singing gene just doesn't seem to exist in our family? Apparently it wasn't just me it skipped. My dear brother didn't have any luck in that category, either. *sigh*)
And when this chorus met my ears for about the 7,402nd time, I realized that maybe, just maybe, this was something bloggable ( < new word. How much fun is that to say? Bloggable bloggable bloggable!)...that maybe there was a way to tie it in to today's post. It's worth a try, right?
While listening to the radio the other day, I heard a story...hopefully I can remember it:
A hurricane ripped across the coastline, pouring intense amounts of rain down on the inhabitants. Cities were flooding, the water was rising and people were crying out for help. One man climbed on to his rooftop to avoid the rapidly rising water in his house. He looked up to heaven and called out, "God, save me!"
The man had loved God all his life, and truly believed that God would reach down and save him from this disasterous situation. He watched for God's hand to come down from heaven; he listened carefully so he wouldn't miss God's voice when it told him what to do.
As he was listening so intently, a rowboat floated by with a neighbor in.
"Do you need some help?" shouted the neighbor. "Climb in my boat!"
The man on the rooftop shook his head. "No, thanks!" he yelled back. "God's going to save me!"
Rowboat man shrugged and rowed away.
Well, the flood waters continued to rise and rooftop man was growing impatient. He thought maybe God hadn't heard him the first time, so he called out again, even louder, "God! Save me!!"
He stared up at the heavens, watching and waiting for the moment when God would come and save him from the floodwaters.
While he waited, another boat came by; this one even bigger then the last. Half a dozen people sat in this boat, but there was still plenty of room inside. One passenger held out a life vest.
"Hey there!" called out the passenger. "You need some help? Here! Take this!"
But rooftop man shook his head and held out his hand. "No, thanks!" he shouted back. "God's going to save me, you'll see!" The people in the boat shrugged and headed off to another rooftop.
Now, the rain had started up again and the situation wasn't exactly getting any better. Rooftop man realized that God better hurry up and do something here. He was getting pretty nervous. "God!" he called out again. "Please, God, please save me!!"
The waters had almost reached the top of his roof. The man danced around anxiously, on his tiptoes, knowing that his miraculous rescue would come any second and not wanting to miss it.
Unfortunately, he was interrupted by the sound of a helicopter.
The helicopter came closer and the man heard a voice coming through a bull horn say, "You there! Hang on! We're sending you a ladder!"
"No!" the man shouted back as loudly as he could. He shook his head again to prove his point. "No, that's OK! God's going to save me!"
Looking rather surprised, the helicopter folks nodded and shrugged and moved off to go find another person in need of rescue.
Well, a few moments later the flood waters had risen so high that they swept the man off his roof. He tried his best to swim away, but in the end, the current was too deep and he drowned.
When the man got to heaven, he said to God, "God!! I've loved you and served you all my life. I've been a faithful follower of your Word. I trusted you to save me! I cried out to you and you didn't do anything! You ignored my prayer, God! Why didn't you save me??"
God raised his eyebrows and looked at the man. "Are you kidding me?!" he said, surprised. "I tried! I sent you two boats and a helicopter! What more did you want?!"
In this story, the man was so sure that God was going to save him. He had this expectation that God would do something totally, incredibly, earth-shatteringly amazing in order to complete the rescue mission. The man was expecting a huge-scale miracle! He was waiting for the hand of God Himself to reach down and save him; he was waiting for God's voice to command the waters to recede. The man cried out, "God, save me!" and trusted God to do so. The only problem was that he was so focused on the powerfulness and miraculousness of God, that he missed the smaller miracle right in front of him.
He was blinded by the light, so to speak. This man believed so strongly that God could and would make unbelievable, inconceivable miracles happen (the "light") that he was unable to see that sometimes, God delights in using the ordinary to do extraordinary things.
The point is that sometimes, we get blinded by the light, too. We get so caught up in reading Bible stories about manna falling from heaven or angels saving people from fiery furnances or the mouths of lions being closed that we forget about the everyday miracles, too.
The thing is, God provides for our every need. If we need it, he's already got it taken care of. He hears every single one of our prayers. And he answers them -- often in ways that we wouldn't expect.
We need to make sure that our expectations don't interfere with our vision. It's great to believe that God does amazing things -- He certainly does! But don't let yourself get so caught up in the extraordinary that you miss all the incredible things he does on a smaller scale.
The most amazing thing God's done in my life? Bringing my best friend into it. There were no lions, fiery furnances, voices from Heaven or manna falling from the sky. In fact, the very first time I met my best friend, I hardly even talked to her. It wasn't an extraordinary day by any means; it was a picnic. But it was the start of the most amazing and important and incredible and yes, miraculous friendship I've ever experienced.
Is there something in your life right now that you are praying for? Are you waiting for God to answer a prayer? Be careful that your expectations of HOW he is going to answer don't interfere with your realization that he HAS answered it.
Don't be so busy waiting to hear God's voice that you miss the rowboat and the helicopter right in front of you. Sometimes God might give you an incredibly obvious answer to an incredibly complicated situation. It's easy to overlook the everyday answers to prayers -- the best friend who called to say Hi when you were feeling low, the brother who started singing obnoxiously when all you wanted to do was focus on writing a blog post, the dog who barked continously for you to take him for a walk so you could enjoy a gorgeous day...
Be ready and waiting for the ordinary AND the extraordinary. If you EXPECT God to do great things, He will. But beyond that, you've also got to be looking for these BIG things -- sometimes in the smallest of places. Don't be blinded by the light of God's greatness -- let his light illuminate things you might have otherwise missed.
....Running is not about math.
Not at all.
In fact, it has nothing to do with numbers.
This is what I discovered today.
Now, I know. I'm sure some of you are taking a deep breath and geering up for a big argument that no doubt starts with something along the lines of, "Well, actually MMSG, the sport of running has an awful lot to do with math. You see, there's rather important concepts like oh, say, distance, minutes, seconds, miles, kilometers, time, calories, speed, the distance/rate/time formula...all of these, believe it or not, are related to math and have an awful lot to do with numbers. So you see, you are very wrong."
Ok, fine. You've got a point. Maybe I should word it differently...
Running should not be about math. Or, for that matter, numbers.
I'm a relatively new runner. I only just started running last month.
But regardless, in these last few weeks, running and I have gone through a lot of phases.
When I first started running, there were a whole bunch of feelings, though most of them centered around the general idea that, "This is great! This is the coolest thing I've ever done! I love it!". Week one was mostly made up of excitement about trying something new.
By week two, however, the novelty had worn off. Excitement was replaced by exhaustion and thoughts like, "Oh, man. Shouldn't it be easier by now?! Ugh. I can't do this. There's no way I can keep doing this!" dominated my consciousness. I was tired and wondering how much longer I could keep it up. Was this really the right sport for me?
Week three hurt, quite frankly. If nothing else, it tested my resolve and determination.
But week four dawned bright and I found myself redoubling my efforts. Motivation soared as I hit the I've-been-running-for-one-month milestone and I pushed myself harder than ever; determined to prove how much I'd improved. Week four hurt, too, but at least I was proud of myself.
Week five was much the same; in the midst of a million other commitments I crammed in time to run... because I had to, after all. I had to get in those extra 10 minutes; I had to do that extra mile, I had to run a fourth day. I had to push myself even harder; I had to beat my best time; I had to get better and do more.
And today is the start of week six. And today also happens to be the day that I've had an ephiphany.
Which brings me back to the statement: Running is not (or should not) be about numbers.
What it boils down to, is that I have finally realized that when I am totally focused on miles, minutes or m.p.h., I'm not having fun.
I started running because it was fun. Because it relieved stress. Because, in the midst of a totally crazy life it gave me time to think my thoughts without distractions. I thrived on the time I spent running on my little country roads, surrounded by forests and birds in the distances and cornfields. I loved the solitude. It was refreshing and invigorating and it made me feel good.
But I allowed myself to get caught up in getting better; doing more; going further. My motivations shifted. Instead of wanting to run, I dreaded it, because I knew I'd be pushing myself even further and becoming even more exhausted. Instead of looking forward to something that had, just a few weeks ago, relaxed and refreshed me, I found that I was instead dreading this thing that was, ironically, causing me more stress.
The over-achieving perfectionist in me dominated the dreamer in me. And I wasn't happy anymore! It took a deer, an icy wind and a drenching rainstorm today, during my run, to make me realize that in a few short weeks I had -- all on my own -- managed to ruin one of the few things that made me happy. I had allowed the numbers to invade!
Here is what I told my very best friend about my revelation-of-a-run earlier today:
....It was an interesting run. I decided to do my favorite route and I set out under the looming, ominous, gloriously dark gray storm clouds praying the rain would hold off til I got home, with the goal of beating my current record, if even only by a few seconds. The first half of my run was great -- for the first time in a month, I felt like I've made some progress. I found that I was running for longer periods without slowing to a walk and I felt really good. So I kept pushing myself and pushing myself and soon I was gasping for breath and every muscle in my body was screaming, "No! I can't take anymore!" and I felt like I was going to throw up. At that point, I realized that if I was pushing myself to the point where I was making myself ill then clearly I'd lost sight of all the reasons I'd started running and I needed to chill out and rethink my priorities (I think all those endorphins make me all philosophical-like. The strangest thoughts go through my head when I run!).
As I was arguing with myself about all this, I turned a corner and quite literally almost ran right smack into a deer, who was just as surprised about our meeting as I was. I think we were only about a foot away by the time it lept one way and I veered the other way. It was pretty cool! (And a pretty stinking big deer, too, I might add!!!)
ANYWAY, now, (in my continued philosophical state) I wondered if perhaps this was God's way of telling me to slow down and enjoy this run, rather then push myself to total exhaustion. And since at that point, I was nearly doubled over from cramps, I sort of had to slow down to a "brisk walk" anyway.
It was at this point that I finally realized it was raining 9and, unbeknownst to me, probably had been for quite awhile) and I was rather wet. Drenched, actually.
So -- here I am, two miles away from home, drenched, caught in a downpour; being blow about by an icy wind [it's only about 50 degrees today anyway], in pain from intense running and already exhausted, and what do I do??
What do you think? This is me, we're talking about.
I stopped and looked heavenward and, in a very Hollywood-movie-like way, spread out my arms and twirled around in the decending drops and said, "Thank you, God, for thunderstorms."...
Is there something in your life that you are dreading right now, even though you used to enjoy it? Maybe it's because, without you realizing it, your priorities have shifted. Maybe you're doing something with different motivations or for different reasons then you originally intended.
There's more to life then numbers and being the best and beating records. Sometimes, you've got to do something solely because it brings you joy and helps you appreciate life. Sometimes, you just have to dance around in a thunderstorm.
"Life isn't about learning how to avoid the storms. It's about learning how to dance in the rain."
p.s. I really REALLY like the title of this post. It's one of my favorite phrases! It just occurred to me that it might be a good title for this blog, instead of "Upon a Thought", which I don't really like. I might change it. Hmmm!
