Storms

I created this blog a few weeks ago for two reasons. Mainly to help keep people updated with things as I serve as a youth intern this summer, but also because I'm a talker. I like to talk out the random thoughts that rattle through my brain and keep me awake at night.
Recently, it's been storms. I have always loved storms. I love the lightening that lights up the sky and then the rolling thunder that follows. I like to watch as the rain just continuously pours and pours without any end in sight. The dark skies and the black clouds are beautiful to me. But recently, I've been looking at the storms in my own life. I love the storms that stay outside-the storms that I can avoid by simply seeking shelter. The storms that follow me wherever I go, well those storms I don't like as much. I've had a lot of storms in my life. It seems that each time I look back through my childhood and the recent years, the sky gets darker. Everything good about my life has been clouded by the storms that seemed to constantly loom over me. I constantly dwelled on the storms of my past and present and how bad they were, never thinking to look at the aftermath of them.
Then one weekend I was visiting home and there was a terrible storm. All day Saturday it rained and thundered. Saturday night the storm really hit and there was destruction everywhere. People in my town were riding around at three in the morning to see how much damage the storm had caused. I slept through the entire thing. I was amazed at how I could have slept through a storm that tore up houses and caused hundred year old trees to come crashing down yet when I have the tiniest bit of a problem in my life, it seems like the end all of everything. Wake up call number one. Then on Sunday as I was driving through town, everything seemed infinitely more beautiful than the day before. The trees were greener, the sky was bluer, and the sun shone brighter than I could remember. It was a gorgeous day and the storm of yesterday was erased from my mind completely. Wake up call number two.
So here's the point. I realized something after that particular storm. I realized that I had always focused on the storm itself. I always focused on how bad the things in my life were or how much damage the storms were creating. I never noticed how beautiful things were when the storm ceased. Storms are a natural pruning process. They break down old trees and branches and give way for new trees and new flowers to sprout. Storms in our lives are pruning processes from God. He uses the storms to refine us and make us purer at the end of the process. The storms aren't there for us to dwell on how bad life can get. They are there to make us stronger and more beautiful. The storms are there to draw us closer to Christ. I think of John 15. In verse 2 Jesus says, "He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit. And he trims and cleans every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit." God has shown me that these storms I've gone through,am going through, and will go through are His way of trimming and cleaning me, His branch, so that I can better serve Him. It took a long time for me to realize it, but now I can look past the storm and towards the beauty of the morning.
Just another stepping stone in my daily walk with Him.