Refuge From the Storm

But you are a tower of refuge to the poor, O LORD, a tower of refuge to the needy in distress. You are a refuge from the storm and a shelter from the heat. Isaiah 25:4 (NLT)

The afternoon thunderstorms are back after a brief respite last week. Every afternoon the sky gets black and the rumbling begins. Sometimes, it is all bark and no bite and we get no rain, only flashes of light and angry crashing. It reminds me of when youngest son comes home from a late night with his friends and raids the kitchen slamming cabinets and turning on all the lights. Sometimes, though, the rain comes down in torrents and I can’t see the street outside my office window. The storms are arriving with such regularity that I have started coming home at lunch to let the dogs in the house. Lucy, our youngest Doberman is terrified of the storms and tries to claw her way through the door if she is left outside. She can hear them before I can. What makes some dogs so afraid of storms? We have had dogs before that never even blinked in the midst of a hurricane. Sky is not comfortable in bad weather, but at least she doesn’t go into a panic like Lucy does. I bring Lucy in and watch her pace looking for a place of safety. She pants and tries to get underneath my feet. As though I am a big giant who will protect her. She moves the couch to crawl between it and the wall or pushes all my shoes out of the closet to lay in the back. For a while, she was wedging herself behind the toilet until I taught her to get into the bathtub behind the shower curtain. There, she has some measure of peace. She huddles there trembling with her ears pinned back until the storm passes and she comes out again. So, I wonder, where do you go when the storms of life come? I once heard a preacher say that everyone is either going into a storm, in the midst of one, or just coming out of one. Storms will come. Guaranteed. Right now, I could be going into one. Youngest son had a medical test for Fire Academy and brought his report home from the doctor. Written across the top, the doctor wrote, “Abnormal results. Not significant. Ok for school. No restrictions.” What? Abnormal results? How? Why? Shouldn’t I be worried about this? Husband says I shouldn’t be. It’s the doctor’s job to tell me when to worry and he didn’t write me a note saying, “This is something you should be concerned about.” He said, “Not significant.” But still…And did I mention that oldest son, the one with no health insurance called about an infection on his leg that might require surgery? I feel the clouds building, but like Lucy, I will run to my refuge. This chapter in Isaiah begins, “O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.” He has not brought us this far to let us go now.