Storm

It's that time of year again when thunderstorms stretch all of the way across the country.

We had a great one the other night!  The sky would not just illuminate so it looked like daytime but it would light up with sometimes three or four distinct lightning bolts.

Even though I was driving, every time this would happen, I would squeal with joy.  "Did you see that one?!"  It drove my sister nuts.

Sitting next to me in the passenger seat she was less than thrilled to be out in a storm.  Before even getting in the car, she repeatedly told me to drive safely.  She asked several people to text her if our Tornado Watch turned into a Tornado Warning.  She was counting down the minutes until we made it home safely and praying the storm would pass quickly.

I too was excited to get home. I wanted to sit by our Palladian window and watch the lightning.  She wanted to sit in the basement away from all windows.

Two reactions to the same thunderstorm.  Likewise, there can be two reactions to the same life storm.

The reaction of Christina: praying it passes quickly, closing your eyes and hoping for a safe delivery to the other side, and wincing when the lights flickers.

The reaction of her older, wiser sister: enjoying the journey, getting a thrill from the unknown, and hoping the power goes out so the views are undistributed.

God, let me enjoy life storms as much as I enjoyed that thunderstorm.  May I not just pray for it's quick passing but may I see Your peace amidst and through the storm.  May I rejoice in every trial, see Your hand in every situation, and delight in the journey rather than waiting for the final result.  If that's what it takes to praise You, bring the storm!

It makes me think of the MercyMe song "Bring the Rain"

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

What about you?  Do you prefer the stormy parts of life or the peaceful?  Can you dance in the rain or do you ask for smooth sailing?

Learning to enjoy the storms of life,
<>< Katie

God Could Vanish the Storm

As I'm sure you've seen on the news, Baptist Country has been pelted with storms over the last few weeks.

It seems every other day I see a facebook update from my sister (ten hours from here) that they're in the bathroom for another tornado warning.

Last week we were supposed to get really bad storms during the wee morning hours.  Unlike at my sister's college, my school doesn't have a good tornado plan.  That made me nervous.

I was checking the doppler to see what we should be expecting over night.  The storm covered the whole map.  It was more colorful than a sunset.  Yellow, red, green...

When I hit "play" to watch the storms roll over the bed where I wanted to be catching some zzzzz, something went wrong.  The entire storm vanished, leaving just the map.  The map was perfectly clear.

"I could do that, you know," God whispered in my ear.

I thought about it for about and realized how cool it would be if God did make the storm disappear.  He's done it before.

Later in the evening, I went out on the porch for some quiet time with God before I went to bed.  It was beautiful!  The pre-storm weather where the sky's getting dark and the wind is picking up, but there's no real storm yet.

When I came back later, Allyson and Nikki had two videos for me to watch.

Nikki's video was a terrifying video of one of the 150 tornadoes from the same storm.

Allyson's video was an updated doppler.  The green band of storms headed for our town had stopped moving.  The bands following it broke apart and dodged our town.  The first band disintegrated.  Nothing was going to hit us.

God had vanished our storm!

We got the beautiful pre-storm weather but no actual storm.  Sometimes I wish life were like that.  I'd be willing to take this beautiful pre-storm weather that is no real post-graduation plans as long as I knew that the actual storm of planlessness would vanish and a plan would appear. 

He could do that, you know.

And maybe He will.  But still I'm fretting.

I've seen God's faithfulness in the midst of storms.  Literal weather storms and figurative life storms.  Why am I having such a hard time trusting Him amidst this pre-storm chaos of a plan-less post graduation?

<>< Katie

PS: For some reason I do not understand, God decided against vanishing the storms elsewhere in the country.  Friends, our brothers and sisters are hurting.  Their worlds have, quite literally, been turned upside down.  There are organizations such as Samaritan's Purse on the ground helping to pick up the pieces; if you are able, please offer your help as well.  If you are not able, definitely be in prayer!

Silly String and Stonings

For my birthday, Melissa gave me the same thing she has given me every year for the past plethora of years: purple silly string. This year, it got opened in "God's front yard" aka the church coffee shop. Naturally, it was mere seconds before we were all covered with purple silly string. Christian was out of the room.

We saw him returning, and I hid around the corner, but he saw my shadow.  Suspicious but unaware of my dangerous weapon, he refused to enter.  After a short impasse, I ran out at him.

"Don't you--"

It was too late.  I, Katie Ax, have showered a pastor with purple silly string in the church atrium.  Of course, Christian wasn't going to let me get away that easily.  He nearly tackled me to usurp the silly string.  I've been in enough "fights" at church to know the woman's bathroom is no sanctuary (pun intended).  Besides, there was no way I was going to outrun him.  And this is still church even if it is Monday night.

Flight wasn't an option.  How do you fight silly string?  I went for the third, less famous option: fetal position.  I fell to the ground in hopes of taking the "tornado position," but I klunked my head on the floor (carpet-covered concrete, in case anyone was ever wondering).  I flailed around for a minute before resolving myself to the fetal position.  We were both laughing.

All of the sudden, Christian's face turned serious.  "And neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more."  And he walked away.

I know the relief I felt that minute was absolutely nothing compared to the relief the adulterous woman felt when Jesus told her the same words some two-thousand years ago.  You see, she faced something far worse than silly string.  She faced death by stoning.

We don't know a lot about her.  We know she was caught in adultery.  We don't know where the man is.  We know the Pharisees cared more about trapping Jesus than they did about this woman.  We know Jesus gave her life.

According to the law given by Moses, the punishment for unfaithfulness was death.

We know Jesus showed her mercy.

Mercy: God not giving you what you deserve.

We know know Jesus showed her forgiveness.

Forgiveness: Saying "Yes, what you did was wrong, but I'm going to put it behind us.  I wish you well."

We know Jesus gives us the same.

"And neither do I condemn you," He says.  "Go and sin no more."

And unlike Christian with my silly string, Christ will never seek retaliation.

<>< Katie

PS: Thanks for all of the birthday wishes.  Tuesday's post had a record number of comments: five.  :-)

Wacky Wednesday

Let's face it: we all say funny stuff.  Sometimes it made sense in our heads and didn't come out correctly, sometimes it didn't make sense inside and still came out, and sometimes it's only funny when plucked from context. 
<>< Katie

Chris: If you're going to call 9-1-1, you should take a picture first.
Katie: I'm not going to use that as a rule of thumb, but if it involves Big Foot, then I definitely agree.

Mom: Your parents are in a tornado warning, by the way.
Dad: My parents?  Do they know that?

Elizabeth: I wonder if I can do that (she ran her hand along the hairdo on a magazine model)
Katie: You should try it.
Elizabeth: I might need to borrow your head.

Laura: My elbow hurts.  No it doesn't.  I just felt like saying that.

Jay: Abs of steel!  Grunt!  Oh, don't do it.

Gwen: Where was I?  Why was I here eating cake?

I was sitting in my room reading a book, as I had been for the last several hours. Laura burst in (without knocking) to tell me about a conversation she thinks she overheard.
Christina: Katie smells like sesame chicken.
Mom: Katie is sesame chicken.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Mom: Get your toe-jams out of my armpit!

[Dad has Katie in a headlock]
Dad: You're getting too old for this.
Katie: No, you're getting too old for this.

Christina: Mom, when's my ortho appointment?
Mom: Ortho?  You mean dentist appointment.
Christina: Whichever one is to get rid of my big jumble of guts.
Mom: Most people call them wisdom teeth.

Dad: Brett, look at the back of your dad's head, Ryan's dad's head, and my head.  How do you think that happened?
Brett [age 13]: Too many noogies.
Dad: Who is the noogie loser?

I had just done a Margarita with a Twist (a flip) into our pool, and it messed up my contacts.
Katie: Woah, y'all are blurry.
Christina: Do you want my noodle?  Here!
Katie: Funny thing, I don't need to be able to see to tread water, but thanks.

Bryce [age 15, practically my cousin]: Katie, come to the park with us!  We'll find cute boys.
(a few hours later)
Bryce:  I got this for you.  It's a friendship for life bracelet.  (He put a glow stick around my wrist)
Katie: Thanks!  I didn't need to go to the park to find cute boys.

Mom: Fireflies are good bugs.
Grandma: They're even better rings!
(She killed a lightning bug and stuck it's butt on her ring finger... she then said it was even prettier than the diamond Grandpa bought for her).

See the blue; be the blue

My summer days have been pretty much the same: check blogger for updates, facebook, read blogs, check blogger for updates, write a new blog, read a chapter, work on novel (50,000 words!), check blogger for updates, read a chapter, work on novel, check blogger for updates...

When I finally tear myself away from the computer, I head to the basement to work on my scrapbook.  Directly above my workstation is a window that leads to a hole in our backyard.  When we first punched holes in the walls to add the windows, we put flowers in the terraced dug-out because they were pretty.  Well, the years have gone by and so have the flowers.

The other day I was banished to the basement (tornado warning?).  After cranking out a few pages, I looked up and saw this:

That's the best photo I could get without climbing on the counter and sitting in the window well in a "super safe way," sorry.  There is one small clump of blue flowers in a huge sea of green.  I looked at those blue flowers and smiled.

That's how we're supposed to be: one blue flower in a sea of green.  We're supposed to stand out in the crowd.  Stand strong for Christ, even when we're alone.  Daily show His grace, mercy, joy, and compassion even when it isn't easy.  We're supposed to be the blue.

A couple of hours later, I was still thinking about this God moment when I remembered the title of disc two in my car: See the Blue by Peder Eide.

The back of the CD case says,

If you look around yourself right now - even as you read this- and look for the color blue, you will most likely find many things that are blue.  The color stands out when you look for it.  It has always been there, but it's when you look for it that you find it!  The same goes for God's presence, God's fingerprint, God's grace, and God's still small voice.  It's always there, but often we don't notice it, hear it, or see it until we look for it."

Do you see the blue?  Can you be the blue?

<>< Katie

July 2, 2000

It's the time of the year again.  The time when we are pelted relentlessly with storm after storm.

We built the house we currently occupy and while under construction it almost constantly had several inches of water in the basement.  Ultimately, we opted to lower the ceiling (literally by raising the basement floor) to avoid most water problems.  We're the low point of the subdivision and the closest we can legally be to a river.  We've also got an industrial-size sump pump and the mother of all dehumidifiers, both of which run for hours daily.  On top of a battery back up for the sump pump, a generator, and a check value, we're pretty much good to go.

We learned the hard way.  Today marks the ten-year anniversary of when our basement flooded.... with almost a foot of raw sewage.  Once we realized the gushing of sewage wasn't going to stop, my mom called her parents who live 30 minutes away.  We were lucky because my aunt and uncle were in town staying there, too.  The six adults ran up and down the stairs with flashlights in their teeth and were able to save 80 percent of our stuff.  (My sisters watched in terror... I was in my room getting a good night's sleep).  Two doors down, they weren't so lucky.  Rob was out of town on business, so eight-months pregnant Karen trudged through literally eight inches of sewage trying to save those irreplaceable.  Three houses in our neighborhood got sewage and another few got water.  It was not a good night.

That was back when we first moved into our new house and lost power with every storm.  We slept with flashlights in each bedroom.  Now, we get so many tornado watches that they're ignored, other than turning on local television.  "Tornado Warning" runs more smoothly than "Dinner's ready."  Turn off and unplug all of the computers, close windows and doors, close the garage door, grab the cats, someone get a flashlight, where's my cell phone?, and into the basement we go. We don't mess around, but we don't panic either.  During one of the more recent storms, I paused for a second. No adrenaline rush, no tremors, and no pounding heart.  In all honesty, I was moderately disappointed, but I was also relieved.

I remember the first tornado warning without my parents. I was just barely old enough to stay home with my sisters, and it was literally the first time they let us stay home alone. They went to a baseball game in the skybox with a bunch of friends.

The sky was dark and even at 7, 9, and 11 my sisters and I weren't stupid. We had all of the flashlights we owned, our first aid-kit, and sweatshirts and blankets all piled neatly on my bed. "Just in case," I said, and we went back to playing.

In the stadium, focus shifted from the game to the tv revealing the weather. Instantly, those with cell phones pulled them out and began to call home. The tornado was headed directly towards our neighborhood. My parents began to panic.

Three little girls home alone + tornado = bad news bears

To top it off, every one of our neighbors, every one of our "call these people if you ever have a problem" friends was at the baseball game with my parents watching helplessly as the weatherman told our area to take cover. Of course, all of the neighbors' kids were home with young babysitters, too. There weren't any better options than "suck it up, go downstairs, and pray hard."

Our prayers were answered very quickly.  On the other end of the phone, Dad stopped talking. The voice was replaced by Rob's unmistakable Pennsylvania accent, "My mom's in town. She's at home with our girls; she'll go and get yours, too."

Grammi's number of scared little girls doubled that minute as she became our hero. My sister said something about being scared and Grammi told her if the storm ripped off the roof, Grammi would lay on top of us girls and there was no way the storm would move her.  :-)   The seven of us huddled in the corner of their basement playing a game and waiting for the storm to pass.  There was no major damages that night but there were a lot of sighs of relief.

Just a good neighbor answering the call of duty or an everyday hero?  Take your pick.

<>< Katie

Bees are Bad

It's apparently teacher's week.  My mother is a teacher.
It's apparently my mother's birthday.  My mother was born on Mother's Day.
It's apparently Mother's Day.  I love my mother.  And my godmother.  And my grandmothers.  And my adoptive mothers. And...

We should be doing something super fun and girly like getting manicures and celebrating them.  But we're not.  In fact, I don't think my mom is seeing any of her daughters on Mother's Day.

I could write something super sappy to go with the super sappy card and maybe send some flowers to... the car?  As I write this my parents are driving across the country to pick me up from another year of school.  I'm fervently studying for finals (can't you tell?) instead of packing to move home again.  Maybe a funny story would be better.

A couple of years ago my mom was planting bushes in our garden.  She jumped on the shovel and it went into the ground really easily.  When she pulled it out, she realized why: it was a bees nest.  Suddenly, bees began to swarm out of the ground around her.  She said it was like a cartoon as she ran across the yard trying to figure out what to do.  She couldn't go inside or they would infest our house.  She couldn't keep running forever.  Luckily, we have a pool.  Mentally she searched herself to see if she was wearing anything that wasn't water proof as she flung open the pool gate.  She pitched her gardening gloves onto the sidewalk as she slid into the pool under the cover.  It's an in-ground pool where the stairs don't have a cover but the rest of the pool does, so she made sure her head stayed underwater above the stairs but the rest of her body was under the pool cover.  She said she could see the bees swarming above where she was and eventually they went away.  When she finally poked her head out she saw Dad and my sister get in the car and drive away, oblivious to the backyard brouhaha and the fact that my fully-clothed mother was in the closed pool.  When all of the bees were gone, she got out of the pool and walked to the back of the house.  In the most pitiful voice she could muster she rang the intercom, "Will someone please bring me a towel?"

I did as I was told and Mom wrapped herself up the towel and pouted on the deck.  (My mom looks like Sarah Palin if you want to put an image of this in your head).  Of course, I laughed at her before finding some Benadryl for her bee stings since she had to stay outside.  The rule in our house is that after swimming you can't go inside until you don't leave a "butt print" anymore.  In other words, if you sit down on the deck, does your swimsuit make the deck wet?  Well, Mom was going to have a butt print for a very long time.  While we were waiting, the phone rang and we recognized the number as Dad's cell.

Mom [pitiful voice]: Bees are bad.
Dad: Tornados are worse; get in the basement.
Mom [looking around at the sunny, clear sky]: Now?
Dad: No, next week Wednesday.  Go!

Thanks to a tornado somewhere else in the county Mom broke her own "butt print" rule, and we were banished to the basement instead of enjoying our beautiful, sunny day outside.

I love you, Mom.

<>< Katie

PS: While we were picking out cards, Jo mentioned it's also nurse's week.  I think she just wanted us to buy her a card.  But my godmother is a nurse, so I suppose I could buy her a card.  Happy nurse's week, too!

Accepted

I don't think I'll ever forget a simple breakfast (my breakfast, his lunch) I once had with a friend Kevin, commonly referred to as "Jesus Shoes."  I've blogged about this brunch before, but I'm going to do it again.  Kevin and I met at the toaster both anxiously awaiting our bagels.

"Where are you sitting?"  I asked. My bagel was done, and I didn't have a seat yet.
"With you," he said.  Kevin, a popular senior, could have sat anywhere, and he chose to sit with me, a sophomore.  That would have been enough to make my Saturday.  But God had greater things in mind for the day.  If I remember correctly, our conversation wasn't anything deep or life changing, just two siblings in Christ sharing life over bagels.  That is, until I became an obsessing perfectionist.

"It doesn't matter, Katie.  It only matters to One and His mind is made up."

I probably rolled my eyes.  While I wasn't happy to hear it, Jesus Shoes had a point (and an appropriate nickname).

Acceptance is something I really struggle with.  It's why I don't like sharing my fiction.  It's why I thrive on feedback (preferably positive, but I'm learning to appreciate negative, too).  It's why I make myself the third wheel.  I pull away before anyone has the opportunity to push me out.  I'm getting better, but it's a problem.

It's also what Neal spoke about last night.  After sharing parts of his experience in junior high, not unlike my middle school experiences, he went off on a slight tangent.  Neal's notorious for tangents but this was a really good one.  One I needed to hear and can be told again every day for the rest of my life.

"I don't know whose acceptance you're searching for but just stop because it's hopeless.  You're never going to obtain it and be satisfied.  You already have Jesus's so why are you still searching?  Is that person's acceptance more important than Jesus's?  You can't please them but you have already pleased Him and that's all that matters."

Sound familiar?

"It doesn't matter, Katie.  It only matters to One and His mind is already made-up."

Thanks for accepting my honesty.

Oh, and even though we're on a MWF schedule this week, out of reverence for Christ's death, there will be no new post on Friday.  It's coming on Saturday instead.  If you've never experienced a Good Friday service of darkness, I highly recommend it.  My prayer is that you see our Savior's death and resurrection in a new way this year.

With love,
<>< Katie

Amy: Guys, we're in a tornado warning; maybe we should seek cover.
Andy: Elizabeth and I have two blankets over here if you want one.

TOR-NAY-DOE

At 5:05am on 09-09-09, I awoke suddenly to a very strange, very loud sound. Eventually I recognized the sound to the tornado siren. It's different than the noise I've always associated with tornadoes (the one that beeps TOR-NAY-DOE TOR-NAY-DOE). A million things ran through my mind: are we really in a tornado warning? What's protocol for tornado warnings? This building doesn't really have a first floor (much less basement). What do I have to do now? I don't hear a stampede of people or emergency instructions from the alarm (apparently we like talking alarms around here... ask me about our fire alarm sometime). My morning alarm is going off in two hours. How about I just duck and cover right here in my bed? If someone comes pounding on my door or for some reason I have to move, I will, but until then, I'm staying here. I reach over my head, slam the window shut (it was raining, too), say a little prayer asking for my safety and the safety of campus, roll over, and go back to sleep.

In the morning I mentioned the rude awakening and most people never heard it. Perhaps the fact that my open window was within arm's length of my head had something to do with it or perhaps not. Even people who insist they were up at 5am did not hear it. Of everyone I've mentioned it to today, no one heard it but some heard about it. (Apparently, it wasn't campus' siren but rather the town's siren, hence was there was no talking).

Am I crazy? Did I dream it? (I did record it in my dream journal this morning before talking to anyone). I'm pretty sure I heard it. That window didn't close itself. I just don't know exactly what happened at 5:05am on 09-09-09, but I do know that for some reason, I needed to pray for my safety and the safety of my campus. Why God chose 5:05am I may never know. Why He chose the tornado siren, I will also probably never know. Yet it happened. I know it happened. As annoyed as I was this morning, I realize I wasn't disturbed for no reason. There was a point and purpose (no, not a porpoise), but I will never know it.

Let God use you for some unknown point and purpose today. It doesn't have to be anything big. Maybe a simple prayer because of a tornado siren in the middle of the night or a smile to a stranger.

Also, don't be so caught up in your own world that it takes a tornado siren for God to get your attention. Yesterday I wrote about always being able to hear Him as clearly as a cicada... well, this morning I heard Him just as clearly. Although, I think the cicadas are a more peaceful sound.

In Christ,
<>< Katie

PS. Does this make any sense?

Clue Number One

On March 21, my friend Jonathan celebrated his birthday. Even though it's late, this still calls for a clever Jonathan story... that requires a lot of thought. Just kidding. :-)

While stories like the orange construction cone and "famous last words" will always have a special place in my heart, I decided on a different story. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Jonathan was one of the people who went on my mission trip to Mississippi several years ago. Our entire group (and several hundred of our closest friends) slept in the church sanctuary. Jonathan and his dad each pulled two pews together and formed beds for themselves. My mom and I slept on an air mattress next to them. One night, I was in bed, and I rolled over to see six-foot Jonathan STANDING in bed trying to get out of the "house" (that's what we called the area where the 15 of us were sleeping...). Unfortunately we were packed in like sardines in a can, so the only way out was to step on someone's head or to walk across the pews.

Since I'm the silliest at night (being with Mom didn't help, of course), I couldn't resist the urge to voice my comment regarding the situation.
"You're STANDING on God's couch!"

I wanted to pull the "teacher card" and be like "Do you stand on your own couch at home? Then don't stand on God's couch either." Actually, I found the whole situation hilarious. And "You're standing on God's couch" is one of those lines that will always make me laugh.

In writing that, I thought of another funny story...

Jonathan and I were in his living room writing a song. There's a huge window in the front of his house and the weather was overcast. His mom came in and said,
"Dad just called and thought we should know we're in a tornado watch."
"Ok. Let us know if it becomes tornado warning," Jonathan responded and we went back to song-writing.
Tornado watch? No big deal.
Tornado warning. Good to know.

<>< Katie

God's Sense of Humor

Last night, I went to bed hearing thunder off in the distance. Before I fell asleep, the distance had gone and the storm was here. Torrential rains poured down on my house, lightening flashed, and thunder roared. I listened to the sounds of nature, praying they were a simple thunderstorm and no more. I contemplated checking the weather to see if tornadoes were anticipated. Tornadoes have a tendency to appear when least expected, and I expected them last night therefore there would not be any. After all, God is in control and if a tornado blows my house over, in His loving arms I'll be. This storm made me think back to one several years ago.

I was still in high school one evening when a storm rolled through. We'd eaten dinner but no schoolwork had been done when the power went out. Our power goes out quite frequently. It's created problems and since then we've put in a generator. However, the generator only powers certain rooms and appliances (the sub pumps, the refrigerator, the furnace, etc.). Needless to say, my bedroom and computer aren't on the generator. It was going to be incredibly difficult to get my homework done in a dark bedroom. It would be just as hard to get my homework done in the lighted kitchen where my sisters were panicking and the radio was blaring.

Frustrated due to my overload of work and inability to do it, I opted not to do any homework for the few hours we were without power and just sit and enjoy the storm. Grumbling and moaning about the lack of power, I sat on the couch in the front room and watched the lightening, listened to the thunder, and peered out into our eerie neighborhood sans electricity. The lightening was lame and when I whispered,
"God, this is a boring storm" a huge bold of lightening flashed and thunder cracked shaking the whole house. He would make a liar out of me! The lightening got much more interesting after that.

Finally, I stopped my complaining and began to thank God for the nice break from the world. How I needed it because I was feeling overworked, underpaid, and not appreciated (just a perk of being middle class and educated). If taking the power away was the only way He could get my attention, so be it. Thank You.

At that very moment, the power came back on and a floor light was shining brightly into my eyeballs. Wow, You're funny. Lesson learned.

<>< Katie

"The men were amazed and asked, 'What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him [Jesus]!'" Matthew 8:27