The storm is over, quit standing in it

​I had coffee with a friend yesterday whom I hadn't seen or talked to in over 3 years. Pandemics create those gaps.

Life in general can do that I suppose.

As we began talking, it was clear both of our lives had changed a lot the last few years. In fact, the more we talked, the more I wondered how it's even possible for two lives to look so different between cups of coffee.

But they were that different.

It was a reminder that while we are weathering the storms of our own lives, we have friends out there who are weathering their own. Maybe mine is a thunderstorm, and hers is a blizzard - but a storm is a storm when you're standing in it. And sometimes a cup of coffee is the universal relief to any storm.

Even if only momentarily.

As we talked, I realized how easy it is when talking about our storms to start blaming ourselves for the storms. Like, somehow storms in life can't just roll out of the plains and into our lives, so I must have caused this storm. And before long, you're no longer talking about a bad storm but a bad me or a bad you.

I heard something yesterday morning just before taking that first sip of coffee. I heard Steven Furtick say, "as long as you rehearse what happened you won't reverse what happened."

It seemed timely to share this with my friend. Yes, I suppose in some ways as advice. But some friends make great mirrors. You offer them guidance and before you know it you're no longer saying the words but hearing them. You believe something has been put on your heart for them to hear but it's your heart that begins beating; thank you - thank you - thank you.

I told my friend it's easy to get caught up in the storm. The storm can be long gone, the sun is out now, but if you're not careful, you can find yourself looking out a window, into the front yard, and there you are, you see yourself, still standing out there with your umbrella wide open.

There you are - protecting yourself from the storm in the sun.

"As long as you rehearse what happened you won't reverse what happened."

There comes a day when we have to look up and see the sun. And we have to go back inside and find a way to celebrate that. Yes, life might look different. But that is the one truth in life no one can stop or deny. Life WILL look different. No amount of time rehearsing the old life will prevent that.

My friend said the struggle is real. This thing called life is hard but also remarkably wild and precious.

Storms, they are wild. In the middle of them, it's hard to call them precious. But maybe when we stop rehearsing - maybe that is when we come to see them as precious.

Maybe when we stop rehearsing, that is when we see the sun.