God's mighty power.

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV

 

 

The pen is powerful. Or in this case the word document in my computer is powerful. If you’ve been following my blog posts you’ll know that my last post was about the power of books we read and the responsibility that that puts on writers. Whether or not an author ever stops to consider how their manuscript affects their readers or not, the responsibility is still there. We may never think about it, never acknowledge it but…

It’s.

Still.

There.

Power is a mighty thing. How much power is there in things we never stop to think about? How much power is in the blowing of the wind? In the turning of the earth? In the crashing of waves against a beach? More than our human minds can ever fathom.

I have spent many hours walking the beaches on both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. I have waded in the waves, swam in the salt water, relished the peace found in just digging my toes into the sand and looking out over the water. There is power in the waves that tumble one after another onto the sandy shore. And they never stop. They just keep coming. Some are bigger than others, some are foamy and white capped, others more gentle but they are all powerful in a way that no person will ever harness.

I am right now sitting on the outskirts of a town that was hit by a tornado last week. If I step outside the front door I can clearly see the damage left in the aftermath. A few miles down the road I can see it even more plainly.

I was not here when the tornado hit but I was here a couple of days before and almost a week after. In my mind I can clearly see the before and after of how the tornado effected the landscape and the houses.

The destruction shows the work of a mighty powerful hand. Sixty plus foot trees are snapped in half or flipped on their sides, completely uprooted as if they were nothing more than toothpicks snapped in the hands of a man.

What kind of force is needed to snap a tree in half like that? What kind of force does it take to toss a huge tree on its side and keep the roots intact?

In my manuscripts I have written of tornados several times. I have ‘set’ in a cabin as a tornado blew through the town where my characters were. I have taken my story through the aftermath of one, had my hero help in the cleanup and rebuilding. My heroine has comforted orphaned children that were traumatized and needed care when the storm passed.

But until yesterday I had never before seen the aftermath of a tornado up close. Several years ago a tornado hit my town. It damaged buildings but did not leave significant damage in its wake. It lifted roofs off houses and set them back in place again. When it was over there was very little evidence left that a tornado had ever passed that way.

It was nothing like what I have seen in the last twenty four hours.

And the tornados I have written did not come close to capturing what I have now seen with my own eyes. The shock and emotions that swept through me as I looked on a forest that just a week ago held tall trees that filled me with peace and made me marvel at the wonders of my Creator.

I now look at broken trees and uprooted trees that make me marvel at the power in my Creator. This tornado swept through woods and town. It destroyed. It demolished. And yet there were no fatalities. The Lord kept his hand on this place as that storm was blowing through.

I am like one of those trees in the midst of that storm. Tossed here and there. Bent and swayed by the trials and stresses of life. And yet…He keeps His hand on me. He draws me near when I feel like I can take no more. He’s there to comfort and shelter me when life is more than I can bear. And when the storms of life pass He shows me what He brought me through as I look back on the trial I thought I couldn’t handle.

And I marvel at the power of my Creator, my Savior. My Lord has tornados to oversee, people to protect, an entire world to take care of. And still He cares about me. He holds my hand when I walk through trials. He cradles me in his arms when I have no strength to stand on my own. He is there when I am close and He is there when I let space get between us.

God is the greatest writer there ever was. And I am grateful that He is writing the story of my life.