We had some 70 mile an hour winds last week that woke me up wondering if a tornado was outside my window and left a nice path of downed trees all through our challenge course and back yard. I knew with the high winds I’d have plenty of branches to clean up, as it’s an older grove with a lot of trees and I spend my fair share of time cleaning up branches each spring and throughout the year. But I wasn’t fully prepared to look out my back window to see whole trees splattered on the ground. It’s a mess. Some are leaning on other trees, some shattered sending hundreds of branches everywhere, some landed on our obstacles, and one barely missed my arbor but took out a good chunk of raspberry bushes and a new climbing flower I planted just a month ago.

Oh I was having a nice little pity party for myself walking around taking in the damage…”I have so much to do… I didn’t have time to clean up trees this week… I have groups coming for retreats next weekend and the following week… why does this have to happen to me…waa waa waa…” and so on.

And of course, as I kept walking, and pondering silently (thankfully), I realized two things:

First, this is kind of my fault. See, a lot of these trees are dead. We only moved here two years ago and while we’ve done a lot of cleaning, we know there are a lot of dead trees that need to come down. We’ve been so busy with other things, taking down dead trees and branches is on the list, but it keeps getting trumped by more pressing things. What I’m saying is, I can’t really complain that I have to clean up tree branches or downed trees, because I knew they were dead, and I was the one who didn’t take care of the problem and take the trees down before it became a bigger problem and they came down on their own where and when I didn’t want them to.

I think, I can see this too in my life when storms come. Sometimes, when I have things I haven’t dealt with appropriately, a storm brings them crashing to the surface at an inconvenient time and place. A hard situation can bring out old feelings I had long stuffed down. A new stress on a family can make old un-healed wounds flare up. Un-forgiveness that had been left to sit and seemed to be forgotten can make a big mess when the winds start to blow. And a lack of faith and trust in God makes us frantic and afraid in a storm.

I started pulling the big branches to the burn pile and I thought about the relationships and areas of my life that still need work. The ones I’ve been avoiding and thinking it’s working just fine to continue avoiding them. And that’s when I started to pick up all the small dead sticks that had come down along side the big trees and from the trees still standing. This will take hours, maybe days. This is a mess. A mess I don’t want my life to be when a big storm comes. It’s a good reminder to me, to prioritize taking care of those things when the weather is nice, so I don’t have a bigger problem when I don’t have the time to deal with it.

Secondly, (I did say I learned two things), I remembered mid-pity-party, sometimes, probably all the time, storms are actually helpful. God only allows them to bring about some good work of His. I realized as I walked around surveying the damage to report to my husband, who would be clearing the big trees with the skid loader, that one tree that had fallen had a good trunk for an obstacle I have been asking him to build for me. He doesn’t even need to move it, just cut it for me. Sometimes, when we get past the poor-me’s and take our eyes off the storm and the damage, we can see the work He’s doing. Like I said, a lot of these trees and branches needed to come down. Wasn’t it nice of Him to shake them all out for me so I didn’t have to cut them down? I never love His timing and yet, if He didn’t force me, some of these trees might not ever come down. I might avoid, or not even see a problem I have if not for a hard situation bringing it to the forefront.

I have lived through enough storms to know to be thankful for them. Sometimes, they bring problems to the surface we have been ignoring too long. Sometimes, our bones need to be re-broken to heal correctly. Sometimes, what we think is inconvenient damage is actually exactly what we needed.

It’s still a mess out there and in my heart here, but little by little we’ll clean up our mess, little by little, we’ll make progress, and if we’re not moving along at the right pace we can be sure He’ll send a storm to shake some things lose or bring some things crashing down.

Thanks for being a Good Father and sending me storms, even though I’m such a complainer, I know You love us so, and you only send the storms we need.