“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?”
Psalm 27:1 (NIV)

It might just be faulty memory on my part but it seems that this is the stormiest May we’ve experienced in these four springs we’ve spent in south central Kansas. Every day this week—though this is only Wednesday—has brought a rolling procession of severe storms. Heavy rain, heavy thunder, and heavy hail. All highly localized in regard to intensity and effect.

We barely caught the fringe of Sunday night’s worst storm with a brief pounding of quarter-sized hail. A mile or so away, stones half the size of a man’s palm descended with wrath and cold fury. I learned on Tuesday that at least two funnel clouds had formed, one of them only four or five miles away. Last evening, yet another storm—focused north of Winfield—stripped gardens and pounded the shreds of plants into the mud.

This morning, I feel as though I haven’t even been to bed. A series of cells seemed to spread out across the whole night, bursts of thunder periodically shaking the house and rousing me from semi- to full consciousness, tossing my thoughts around like small leaves in a hard wind.

Other towns along the great rivers of the Midwest endure their third or fourth week of continuous flooding. In our section of Tornado Alley, we continue with flash flooding, rising rivers and the fact-of-living possibilities of even more dire circumstances.

We each face such what-may-come with attitudes that vary from trembling fear to fatalism to undaunted faith. Those who have been graced with and have embraced genuine belief understand that whether life brings testing or resting, their souls are kept safe in hands stronger than the storms. Even in the darkest nights, there is a Light that guides them on. Even when it may be to places they’d rather not go, they know that they will never leave their truest home.

H. Arnett
5/8/19