Twister

For those of you who know me, you know that I have been in a series of valleys. As soon as one trial is over I am already on my way down into another. It has been a struggle, to say the least. I know, though, that I don't go through this alone. I know, too, that I need to share the prayer below. This is a prayer that my best friend sent me several years ago. It has been praying on my mind for days. So for me, for you, and for the glory of God, my father, here it is. Please hear my heart and hers in this:

Remember that 80's or 90's movie Twister with Helen Hunt? I was up late the other night and it came on some channel. I got to that one part where they are in the middle of the tornado, "literally". They had tied themselves to some immovable pipe of some sort in some building that was torn to pieces and for just a few minutes or seconds they were exactly in the middle of the tornado looking up in the center of it. You probably know where I am going with this, but it was beautiful just the same. I remember the first time I saw this that I marveled at what a picture of our christian life this is. If we stay in the absolute center of God's will, then the storms really can't touch us. They can rage all around us, but can't harm us. Our eyes and our focus play a huge role in how we will weather the storm. If we open our eyes and look out around us, we will see nothing but chaos and destruction, and it will breed fear in us. However, if we stay on our knees in prayer, we can't see all of that. The other option is to look straight up and keep our eyes on Jesus. In the movie, the picture of the sky through the middle of the tornado was breath taking. The thing that struck me hardest this time was the way they were anchored down. The force of the storm swirling around them was so strong that it lifted them up, but they were not pulled away. They had taken the time to not only hold on but to tie themselves to those pipes. If they had anchored to anything else; house, car, other person...they would have been carried off into the storm with that item. I also thought about how they had to anchor themselves before the storm got there. So, really, it is our day to day walk with Jesus that holds us when the storms come. So, here is my prayer for us today; that we would "come out from amongst" the storm of this world and be a peculiar people. We will seem a bit strange day by day but, when the storm gets here and we are not carried away, we won't look so strange; that in the midst of our storm we would "love not the world, neither the things of it" in such a way that it would not pull us from a posture of prayer or take our eyes from heavenly things; and that we would be anchored only to that which will hold us. This is my prayer for each us today as well. I also pray that we prepare ourselves in advance for our trials. That we not only hold to Him, but we tie ourselves to Him with His own rope that will never break. That we realize the battle is on our knees. That we realize we are an army, and none of us stand alone. May God bless you and keep you. Love, B