Remaining fully present in life’s figurative or literal storms – guest post by Jessica Brodie
(Please note, the below post is not intended to minimize anyone’s pain or hardship. I share it because I found the reminder to see good, even if but a single ray of light piercing through an otherwise cloudy sky, in the present encouraging and a practice to which I aspire. I know there is good in each moment because God is with me in each moment)
I woke up one Friday to no electricity, no cell phone signal, and a neighborhood that looked like it had been through a war. Strong winds and tornadoes from the hurricane left behind a nightmare of destruction. Signs of disaster surrounded me—neighbors with downed trees, some on their homes. Roads blocked.
And the rain was still coming down.
Two days prior, I’d been weeping over feelings of stress and overwhelm, trappings of my busy everyday “normal” life. Now, those feelings seemed so petty in comparison to what we faced today. Perspective slid into alignment with the perfect click of hindsight, replaced with understanding about what really matters.
God, life, family, food and shelter, basic human kindness … that’s what really matters—not work deadlines or to-do lists. Not all those silly surface worries that had consumed me days prior.
After the wind and the rain had subsided, my husband and I walked our acre of land and surveyed the house. Gratitude welled up in my heart. Unlike so many others, we’d somehow escaped with not a downed tree on our property. We were without power, and would be for several days, but our house was unscathed, and none of us was hurt. We had a generator that would keep our food from spoiling and camping gear that made the ordeal somewhat like an adventure.
Yet not too far from me, people were mourning lives lost from that same storm, houses demolished, roads washed away, and whole towns underwater.
Just like that, lives changed. For some, everything changed.
This week, I’m keeping that gratitude close to my heart, and I pray you’ll do the same.
We all go through suffering and hardship in our lives, some far more than others. We never know when we’ll say “I love you” to someone for the last time, or whether the things we take for granted will suddenly be gone.
What we do have is right now—today. We have this moment to be alive, to allow gratitude to swell in our hearts and minds, to share love, mercy, and compassion with fellow humans, to care for each other in the way Jesus commanded us. We have this moment to bask in the sunshine and breathe in the cool morning air, to laugh with a loved one and glorify our Savior.
God commands us not to worry over and over again in the Bible. Jesus told us Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (NIV).
The past is gone, and the future could be taken in an instant. What we have is right now, this beautiful moment.
Let’s savor it knowing that we are beloved today.
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Get to Know Jessica Brodie
Jessica is an award-winning Christian journalist, author, blogger, and editor. She is the editor of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, the oldest newspaper in Methodism, which has won more than 118 journalism awards during her tenure. She is the author of two devotionals, Feed My Sheep (2019) and More Like Jesus (2018), and editor of Stories of Racial Awakening (2018) and Called by God (2020), all from her newspaper’s Advocate Press. She also writes fiction, represented by Bob Hostetler of The Steve Laube Agency, and her novel The Memory Garden won the 2018 Genesis contest for unpublished contemporary fiction from the American Christian Fiction Writers. A speaker and contributor to Crosswalk, Christianity.com, and the United Methodist News Service, she has a faith blog at JessicaBrodie.com. Subscribe to Jessica’s YouTube Channel HERE.
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