Fuzzy Theology

Living in Florida has taught me many valuable lessons like how to run away from an alligator, what to do when half-frozen iguanas start falling from the trees, how many mosquito bites constitutes a medical emergency, and most importantly when to hunker down and when to get out of town. Each hurricane season, we play a game of will we / won’t we as the latest storm comes barreling across the Atlantic or sneaking up on us from the Gulf.

I read a meme somewhere that preparing for a hurricane was like being stalked by a slow-moving turtle and in most cases that is one hundred percent accurate. We can usually see them coming days, if not weeks, away.

Most of the time.

But it was one of those sneaky, come-from-behind, unpredictable hurricanes I will forever be grateful for.

Rapid intensification and an wobbling track made for a few days of high-stress and quick storm preparations. Shutters went up. Bottles of water were filled. Canned foods were bought and counted. My family and I were fully prepared to hunker down – even if that meant riding out the next few weeks without air conditioning.

That is until the category three turned into a five with no sign of weakening.

My mom is usually the one to call chicken first and begin talk of evacuating. With this hurricane, my voice quickly joined hers and surprisingly even my husband joined in. The bigger the storm got, the more sure we were that we needed to get out of town. Especially living near the coast.

And for some reason, we decided not to travel to the middle of the state like we usually do, just far enough away from the coast that we’d be out of the path of the eyewall.

No, this time we decided that since we’d most likely be out of school/work for a few days – if not longer – we’d make the long journey from the middle of Florida to the northeast corner of Tennessee.

If you’ve been following along in my stories, you’ll know Tennessee and I don’t exactly get along. (Click here to read more about that series.)

But my husband had family up there and we were going to take this opportunity to see them.

I’d like to tell you there was a sense of peace settling over us as we packed our things and prepared our house to weather the storm without us. There wasn’t. But there was enough nervous energy to clean the entire house top to bottom – twice.

My house is never as clean as it is when company is coming over or when we’re under the threat of tropical systems.

The day we’d planned to leave was flooded with a flurry of last minute preparations. My daughter, barely two years old, must have felt this energy because her usual nap turned into a two hour concert featuring the Itsy Bitsy Spider song on constant encore. If that wasn’t bad enough, the phrase “Down came the rain” took on different meaning as my daughter’s sweet angelic voice morphed into one of a guttural, growl each time she sang.

As if she was trying to tell us something.

Surely, she was too young to understand that the approaching hurricane would bring down flooding rains.

Right?

Or was this some sort of toddler premonition that, like poor itsy bitsy, we were about to be washed away.

Either way, it further cemented our need to leave. (And yes, I did catch her dramatic song on video.)

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever evacuated from a hurricane before but let me paint you a picture. Florida is very long and very straight with maybe one or two main roads leading in and out of the area. During evacuations these roads become congested with SO. MANY. CARS. turning a short ride into many long and painful hours.

On the way to Tennessee, we faced overcrowded rest stops, gas stations without any gas, tense stand-offs with other evacuees over the last bag of chips, and the constant shrieking of my sweet angelic baby who unlike every other baby I’ve ever known – cannot sleep in the car.

Ever.

But what seemed like three hundred years later, we finally arrived in my husband’s hometown, greeted by the wide-open arms of my mother-in-law.

What followed was truly a blessing.

While the hurricane churned in the Atlantic, barreling down on our city, we spent the week going to museums, finding hidden gem playgrounds, eating family dinners together and hiking trails that looked like they were pulled from the pages of some glorious fantasy novel.

It was a beautiful week.

And it was also the last time we would all be together in the same place.

We said our goodbyes and took some final family pictures before we began a grueling journey home. The hurricane we’d escaped from had chased us up the coast leaving many areas flooded and closed. We stayed glued to the radio as we worked our way in 5 MPH traffic through mile after mile of the Carolinas.

Travelers warned us they’d heard reports that the entire state of Georgia was closed. We thought surely that must have been an exaggeration, but as a precaution we filled our tanks and grabbed dinner before crossing that state line.

It wasn’t an exaggeration.

We traveled through mile after mile of interstate – each exit blocked by National Guard vehicles. The further we traveled, the more cars we saw lining the shoulders.

Cars that had run out of gas.

Cars that had broken down, and sat with their hoods up.

Cars filled with people who just needed a break.

On we pushed while my daughter cried in the backseat, while our stomachs rumbled, while our legs ached to move, and our eyes stayed glued to our gas meters.

Eventually, we made it home. The storm had spared us and our evacuation seemed like a foolish journey.

But…

It was not even two months later when we got the phone call that my mother-in-law passed away.

To say it was unexpected was an understatement. This woman, who we’d seen just days ago, had been so full of life, so full of energy.

And she was gone.

But it was because of this sneaky, come-from-behind hurricane, that we were able to spend one last week with her. One final time of hearing her laugh and watching her play with our daughter. One final time of having family dinners and listening to her stories.

The terrible journey to and from Tennessee suddenly seemed less like a hardship and more like a blessing. Like an answer to a prayer we didn’t know we needed.

And this massive hurricane that flooded parts of Georgia, that closed schools and canceled work, that cost billions of dollars in damage and support, was the one thing my family was most grateful for.

Without it, we wouldn’t have had that one last opportunity to spend time with my mother-in-law. Without it, we would have continued working and going to school unaware that we were about to lose a family member.

But God knew.

In the midst of this storm, He’d pressed on our hearts to travel further than we should have to visit family. He’d given us the opportunity we needed to break away from our busy daily routine to spend time with someone He was ready to call home.

God knew.

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you—says the Lord-plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope. When you call me, and come and pray to me, I will listen to you.

Jeremiah 29:11-12

In verse after verse in the Bible, we can see God’s promise to answer our prayers – every one of them – even if He answers them in unexpected ways or in frustrating timing.

But we also see how God answers prayers we didn’t know we had.

Like our prayer to see my mother-in-law one final time.

We’ve all heard the advice to trust in God’s timing and trust that God hears us, but I would like to add one more to the list of trust.

Trust that God knows your heart and that even when the storms are upon you, God is beside you, guiding you through.

I cannot promise that things will look brighter, that there will be rainbows and sunshine after the rain. Often, after the storm, there is debris and clean-up and hard, long goodbyes.

Often, there is another storm.

But I can tell you that in the midst of the storm, in the heart of the clean-up, blessings can be found.

Maybe not right away.

Maybe not for days, or weeks, or even years.

But just as my family looked back at our harrowing evacuation, in light of the passing storm, we found a hidden blessing.

Look, with eyes of faith, for those hidden blessings.

Thank you for joining me in this Adventure in Faith. If you are reading this, know that I am praying for you and your passing storms. I would love to connect with you. Join the conversation on Twitter @FuzzyTheology or drop a comment below!