When the Storm Breaks You Open -- But Not Apart!: Appreciating Life's Storms

 

The storm didn’t come to destroy your life—it came to reveal the life that could only be seen once everything else was stripped away.

There are moments when fear roars so loudly that it strips life down to its rawest elements.

A major storm like Melissa does not politely disrupt—it dismantles. Roofs torn away. Farms erased. Income gone. Water unsafe. Power silent. Banking frozen. Voices cut off from the world. And for some, the heaviest loss of all: people they loved, gone forever.

In those moments, survival becomes the only language.

And then—weeks later—something holy begins to stir.

Lights return. Clean water flows again. Food shows up. Messages finally send. Help arrives—not only through supplies and money, but through something deeper: human hearts choosing to move toward suffering rather than away from it.

Here is the truth we rarely say out loud:

Destruction has a strange way of revealing who we really are—and what we truly trust.
Loss does not become good. Death does not become acceptable. But they do something powerful: they tear away what was never essential and expose what always was.

Scripture names this pattern without sugarcoating it:
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalms 30:5). Morning doesn’t erase the night—it honors it by proving it was not the end.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Darkness can wound. It cannot own.

God’s blessings often arrive through ordinary people doing courageous things—restoring power, sharing food, giving quietly, praying faithfully, rebuilding patiently. This is not coincidence. This is how God heals the world: through people who let suffering soften them instead of hardening them.

So pause—and let these questions search you, not the situation:

• When everything familiar was stripped away, what in me remained standing?

• What fears were exposed—and what faith surprised me?

• Who showed up for me in my darkest hour… and how did that change the way I see humanity?

• What comforts died that needed to die so something truer could live?

• If restoration is slow, am I willing to grow at the same pace?

• Who am I becoming now that I know what truly matters?

Restoration is rarely loud.
It is faithful.
A working light.
A clean glass of water.
A voice heard again.

And step by step, blessing by blessing, God rebuilds—not just what was lost…
but who we are becoming on the other side.