Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope

Beauty From Life's Storms

Episode Transcription

Be still, my soul

Thy God doth undertake

To guide the future as He has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence

Let nothing shake; 

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: 

The waves and winds still know

His voice who ruled them

While He dwelt below 

 

January has blown in out of the north, and it could be snowing where you are.  If no snow, then for certain the lawn is brown, and the little tree in your yard is shivering and you better check the caulking around your windows.  A blizzard can't be far away, right?

Remember those blizzards when you were a child?  I sure do.  I'd shiver under my quilt, listening to the creaking branches outside my window.  It was scary.

Oh, but in the morning... it was a different picture, wasn’t it?  I would awake to bright rays of sun.  The howling during the night had ceased, and maybe an occasional gust would swirl snow off the sill.  I’d run and look out the window at this most beautiful, silvery‑white landscape.  A white blanket covered the street, the yards, the hills and all was peaceful.  Maybe the storm had been wicked, but the fright of it all was forgotten in the quiet beauty of that scene. 

I need to remember that, because there are times when I get blasted by blizzards.  I'm talking about a different kind of weather... the kind that locks your soul in winter.  Discouragement clouds your thinking, and the sameness of the day‑to‑day routine feels like a long string of stark winter afternoons.  No color.  All gray. No joy.  Days when your soul feels raw and exposed.  Maybe a sudden illness, a deep disappointment, unexpected bills.

But remember this, the God who brings beauty out of blizzards, promises to bring peace out of the storm of your life – peace of mind, peace of heart and 1 Samuel 23:4 gives the weather forecast. It says, “He is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning; like the brightness after rain that brings grass from the earth.”  You would never that in the blizzard, but it’s a promise and it’s coming. 

The Lord Jesus who calmed the threatening storm and quieted the raging winds will bring peace and stillness and quiet into your heart, and that is a blanket promise.

 

 

Used by permission of

JONI AND FRIENDS

P.O. Box 3333

Agoura Hills, CA 93176

www.joniandfriends.org

©  Joni and Friends