Tag Archives: strong enough

Survive the Storm

The storm lasted through the night, but today the thunder and lightning has passed leaving a gentle rain in it’s place. Before the storm arrived, I brought the wreath from the front door inside and I swear with the weather we’ve been having this year this wreath has hung indoors more than out, but thanks to my friend Dawn, I like it equally in either place.

During the storm, the Marvelous Mrs. M. Marco Polo’d me just to make sure everything was alright. She had seen a neighbor’s post on Instagram of the golf ball sized hail we received, but it’s been a long time since seeing hail come down as hard as rain and roll down the street.

I’m not a fan of storms and almost admire those who can sit outside to watch them pass through, but God has brought me a long way this year through storms both literally and figuratively. It began back in January with the simple and yet surrendering act of continually trusting Him through each and every one. The red banana tree planted outside my window took a beating from the hail of our most recent storm and I didn’t think quickly enough to even try to protect it.

There was no need for me to intervene because that’s a part of that ‘trusting Him’ in all things, even protecting a banana tree that’s too heavy to move indoors. Seeing it’s tattered leaves shredded by the hail it looks beaten, but it’s still standing tall and upright, so it survived. I think we all feel like this banana tree looks after a storm, but the storm does pass and it doesn’t last forever.

Our part is to make it through.

It’s outer leaves look rough, but let’s take a look inside.

There’s growth, shiny and new.

We may get the crap beat out of us like Mr. Banana, but there’s strength to be gained during each and every storm. The storm is growing us from the inside, but we won’t realize all the benefits of growth until after we survive the storm.

A Practice in Patience

I gave myself a practice in patience. You may be familiar with Bath and Body Works 3-wick candles, and that is what I chose to practice with.

It was given to me this month and has a Christmas scent. The other day it was lit, but all three wicks were not much of a flame. They looked as if they could snuff out at any given moment. It’s a relatively new candle and this was the second time it’d been lit, so I blew it out and pondered my options. Bath and Body Works stand behind their products, so I knew I could take it to the store and they’d replace it with a new one. That was an option, or I could be patient and work with it to see how far we could go.

I lit all three wicks and they were struggling to remain lit. I placed it in a draft free zone away from activity. Two of the wicks began burning brightly, but there was one that wouldn’t stay lit. It kept going out and I’d relight it each time. I forgot about the candle for a while, but the next time I walked by and took a look, all three wicks were lit! Two of them had been burning long enough to melt down the wax, so the third one could breathe. The two stronger wicks helped the one that was struggling. We need that too.

It took hours of working with this candle, but my patience didn’t wane. We don’t know for sure how strong we really are until an area is tested. We’re capable of more than we give ourselves credit for and we don’t have to be surprised by every test. We can test ourselves to continually redefine our level of patience.