Storm and Sun

Sometimes the world around me explains my emotions better than I. A movement, a feeling, a song exists in nature that often expresses how I feel better than my own words. Words feel sometimes limited, absent of the deepest form of the sensation that reverberates inside my chest. The wind often expresses my peace. It is weightless. It is clear. It is breath. It is steady. The rain often expresses my hurt. It pours out what the clouds cannot hold any longer. It covers the earth in a way that cannot be ignored. A release. And it lasts a while. Sunshine expresses my joy, my happiness. It warms everything it touches with a soft yet powerful glow. It exposes the dark places and seems to bring a sense of healing, a sense of hope. Waves, however, especially the ominous ones, express my loneliness or grief from loss. Better than rain, they express the force behind pain. They embody all too well the kind of pain that feels consistent, relenting only for moments at a time. When hit with a wave of this pain, I am caught off guard. My high can crash to a low in a matter of seconds. The tide rises strong and sure, threatening to break over my head. It seeks to engulf me. It burns behind my eyes and lurks to choke me completely. It wields daggers into my soul, recedes, then returns with another blow. Even when Iexperience the peaceful sensation of wind and the calming presence of the sun, the waves still crash to make storm wrought shores.

A dichotomy of storm and sun.

I crave the affects offered by the sun of joy and winds of peace to flood my heart, rather than the cold rash waves of pain, loneliness, grief. But perhaps life exists in such a statesometimes… the sun shines, the wind blows, and yet the waves still crash and recede… crash and recede. Perhaps many of my emotions and experiences can happen simultaneously in my heart much like the strange dichotomizing world around me. To admit that sun and rain, joy and pain, may happen in tandem is to face the reality that ultimate relief may not express itself fully this side of heaven. Some realities never shall.

But a comfort I find is that I am not the wind, the rain, the sun, nor the waves. I am human. I am an intricate personal creation of the Eternal God. Thus, God cares for me most of all.And you. He is concerned with the wind, yes, but more about your personal divine peace. He is concerned with the rain, yes, but more about healing your personal wounds of hurt. He is concerned about the sun, yes, but more about your personal joy. He is concerned about the waves, yes, but so much more about being your Constant One through any loneliness or grief from change and loss.

Creation groans for the return of the King, and so do I—much more do I. Is it selfish to groan for His return? To desire final relief from the wounds, the scars, the tears? No, I daresay to groan for heaven—where we are made completely whole, forever holy, and totally satisfied in the presence of Jesus—is one of the most Biblical responses for the Christian in a broken world. I must learn then, from the Great Counselor, how to livein the dichotomy of my storms and sun.

Though much alludes my limited understandings of life, I remain confident in the intentions of the Great Counselor, the Holy Spirit of God: to teach us to feel the depths of His approval. Taste the richness of His gentleness. Breathe deeply the wonder of His mighty love. Drink in the strength that wells over from His presence.

Our eternal hope is that one day the wind that feels like peace will never stop. The rain that feels like hurt will trickle to an end. The sun that shines like joy in our hearts will never cease. And one day the waves that swell like the deepest sorrow will ebb forevermore.

Becca Thompson

February 3, 2024