Heavy heart. Broken spirit. Shattered hope! He knelt right there, in the same garden where hope was created. The same ground upon which the created sun first shone! It all started here in the garden, even though Gethsemane was a far cry from Eden. Even so, it reminded him of life and the promise called humanity before sin raged. But how did humanity come this far? Did father in heaven have it all wrong? Why should the creator have to die for the created? As these thoughts raced through his subconscious, he began sweating profusely. It wasn’t just sweats of water and salts, but of blood from a broken heart.
As humanity’s narrative hurt him more and more, he looked up to his father in heaven and asked again: can this storm pass? He knew it was his storm. He knew this hurricane was his. But he was also fully aware of the tearing, the menace, the brutality, the agony and the havoc the coming storm will wreck on his now partly mortal self. It would never be easy. One more time, he looked up and observed the approaching storm on the near horizon and at last he said, not my will but yours. He yielded to the hurricane that was named after him; the death on the cross, knowing fully well its ramifications. But his father never left him to dance alone in his storm as heavens danced with him in the garden of Gethsemane.
Apparently, your hurricane is not meant to be sheltered. It was meant to be weathered. It has not brewed just to miss you. It was meant to hit and not miss. So brace for it! Whatever hits you is yours! From everything else, God can and will shelter you. Sometimes, like Jesus in Gethsemane, we just have to bow our head, say a prayer and weather the storm. We have to yield to its rhythm and dance to it. We have to trust that the one who places ‘hurricane me’ in our path will not permit its storms to destroy us.
And yes, the music of the storm is challenging! Erratic! Menacing. Twisted and quite dynamic! It will test your faith, and rip your walls apart; it will tear down your defenses! But it will not break you. On its ruins, you will rise, like a phoenix rises from the ashes of a fire. And you will never again look at the horizon with fear of the approaching storm! You will dance to the clapping of the thunder, because YOU will never Dance ALONE in your RAIN! God will dance with you.
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