Nearly 80 years have passed since Lena Horne sang “Stormy Weather,” but the title of that song still stands as a metaphor for the personal troubles that are part of everyone’s life. In one way or another, we all experience “stormy weather.”
Our relationships with family members, friends and colleagues can turn stormy – not merely annoying, but deeply upsetting. Illness, our own or that of loved ones, can upend our peace of mind and heart. Guilt, both real and imagined, can send us into a tailspin, not to mention self-pity. The atmospherics of life can turn stormy when one becomes the object of unfair or even vicious criticism and bullying. Personal doubts about one’s self-worth or about one’s abilities can swirl through one’s heart and mind with the destructive force of a hurricane.
Often, the storms of life come and go, like tropical winds that dissipate over the ocean. As suddenly as they begin to gust, they die down. But sometimes the tropical storms of life organize into “the perfect storm.” Like tropical winds that organize themselves into a hurricane, the troubles of life sometimes seem to organize themselves into one giant storm threatening to wreak havoc upon us. As the winds swirl about us, we may feel as though we are at the center of it all, in the proverbial “eye of the hurricane.”
If so, we should take heart. It is better to be at the center of the storm than to be on its edges, where we are likely to be blown away. This is not to say that the eye of a hurricane is a pleasant place to be. If at the eye the wind speeds are slower and the clouds fewer, there is still plenty of turbulence and danger. Yet, despite the anxiety we feel, this place of relative calm offers us an inside track, a unique vantage point on the howling winds that surround us. Besides, we are not alone.
There is another who is with us in the eye of our personal hurricanes. It is the Lord. If we look for him, we can find him. He is likely in the Garden of Gethsemane, in the eye of the ultimate storm between evil and good, sin and grace. It was there that he took upon himself the sum total of human weakness, including our sins. As the Son of God “who became like us in all things but sin,” he truly does know what we are going through – whether our sufferings are the result of our own folly or imposed upon us by others.
For Jesus’ agony was real. Not for nothing did Jesus pray that the cup of suffering pass him by. Not for nothing did he sweat blood. Taking upon himself the sins of the world – every form of human inhumanity – Jesus suffered intensely. He felt the anxiety and distress we feel, but to an immeasurably greater degree. Yet, as he knelt in the garden, he did not disintegrate. Instead, he accepted willingly his sufferings for the sake of us all. “Not my will, O Father, but your will be done.” Following Jesus means praying the same prayer ourselves.
The first letter of Peter urges us to “cast our cares upon the Lord because he cares for us” (cf. 1 Pt 5:7). If we find ourselves in the eye of a hurricane, let us remind ourselves that “the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him, on those who hope in his unfailing love” (Ps 33:18).
When troubles threaten to overwhelm us, we need to kneel down and pray, just as Jesus did, and invite him into the center of our lives. The storms of life will continue to churn, but with the Lord, we will find in the midst of them a peace the world cannot give.
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