Last night and this morning we’ve been blessed to have some Thunderstorms. Blessings for me anyway. By her actions, my daughter does not agree. As the thunder rolled this morning at around 5:30am, there was a frightened knock and cry at our bedroom door:

“Mommy, I’m scared!”

It was our oldest daughter, Hannah, who inherited her mother’s dislike of thunder.

So, we had her climb up in bed with us, right in-between us, clinging to her stuffed unicorn.

She didn’t go to sleep. I kept drifting off, but then as the thunder would awake me, so would she.

“Daddy, that one was on the wall!”

To which I would reply, “it’s okay sweetie, you’re safe,”and then try drift off back to sleep.

In the Northwest United States, we don’t get a ton of thunderstorms. In fact, they’re very rare. This year however, we’ve had several. Where I grew up, in Southeast Ohio, we had them all the time. I’m sure I was scared of them as a kid, but as I grew older I grew to love them.

This storm was terrifying for Hannah. To her, it was the only thing in her world at that moment.

To me, it was relaxing, even calming.

I can imagine the thoughts in her mind: “This is so scary! How can they be sleeping through this!”

From my perspective, things were much different. I’ve been through many thunderstorms that were much worse, I’ve hidden under my desk in school through a tornado warning, I’ve helped students at a youth event under pews in the sanctuary through a tornado warning.

Yes, the thunder was loud, but I wasn’t worried. But Hannah hasn’t been through very many storms at all, and certainly none that would put this one into perspective.

Thinking about this reminded me of they lyric in the famous Christmas Carol “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” that reads:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

God has weathered the most brutal of all storms. His, is the power behind the Lightning and Thunder, and even they wither in comparison to His awesome might. As trouble comes and storms arise, we can rest in this truth. “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.”

It may seem that God does not care about our current plight, but remember, He’s been through worse. His perspective is much greater than our own. He knows and cares for each of His children deeply, and knows the outcome of each of our stories. He sees the role this storm will play in shaping our lives and rests.

“The wrong shall fail, the right prevail with peace on earth, good will to men!”