It's been a while since I've had an epiphany, so I've been silent, but I had another one a little over a week ago, and I wanted to share.
My youngest son's birthday is July 14; my baby girl's birthday is the 31st, and my middle son's birthday is August 14th, so they're all two weeks apart. I didn't have the finances to do anything for them this year other than bake them a cake on their birthdays. I felt horrible, but God... I was blessed with enough money to take them to the water park (after a certain time you get a reduced rate!). My boyfriend has a little boy who just had a birthday as well, so I planned for two weeks to take them all on a trip to Gulf Shores. We had the entire day planned out, and everyone was excited.
After we turned south off the Interstate headed to our destination, dark clouds filled the sky. We pressed forward, praying the clouds were closer to our present location than to our destination. We were hopeful yet concerned until we saw a wall of water straight ahead! My heart sank and so did theirs. We knew our day was doomed by the storm, so we discussed what we should do. We all quickly decided to continue on with the day. We figured we would find something indoors we could do and enjoy.
We drove through the wall of water to find it barely sprinkling not far in the distance on the other side. As we approached the water park, we made a choice to see if they were still open for business. They were! We got a reduced rate to get in, had no lines to get on the slides, and it barely sprinkled a time or two! We ended up having a blast, and the nice overcast kept the sun from beating down on us and burning us. It ended up being the perfect time to be at the water park. No burned feet from the hot cement, and no sweltering, miserable heat taking your breath away. It was warm yet cool all at the same time. I turned and looked at my boyfriend as we watched the children having a wonderful time together, and we both decided that there was a blessing in the storm.
That day's events had me thinking...how many times do we see a storm coming in our spiritual lives and turn back, turn around, and head in the opposite direction? We often run from the storm rather than drive straight through it. From a distance the storm seemed much worse than what it turned out to be, and had we not made a choice to keep moving forward and to not allow the rain to stop us, we would have missed out on one of the best days we've all had together.
I think the enemy has a way of making those clouds look darker than what they truly are. He uses fear to cause us to turn away from the blessings in the storms!
Be blessed and be made whole,
Schledia
