Hello all – we are meeting at the Tavern and Galley at 7:30pm on Sunday night. See you there!
When I said that I would write this blog back on January 3rd, 2025, I had no idea of what was just around the corner waiting for me. 20 days later I was diagnosed with Endometrial Cancer. Three months later I had a full hysterectomy and 3 weeks after that I was told I was cancer free and then I had five more weeks of recovery. In total the first six months of 2025 were taken up in this storm. Now this storm has been very different to storms I have faced in the past. But it’s only been different because of walking through the past storms and the lessons I have learnt from them.
There are actual elements and situations that I find calming in an environmental storm. I love being in the car or a shelter and listening to the heavy rain pounding on the roof. I love listening to the thunder roaring in the air and the flashes of lightening animating the sky. However, you do not want to be in the car if I’m driving and we’re in a thunderstorm because every time the lighting strikes, I close my eyes. This is not ideal when you are the passenger in the car that I’m driving as my husband found out not long after I passed my test.
Now the one element of nature I do not like is wind, it is lovely as a soft breeze on a summers day but when that wind is at its strongest and most fierce, in the North of the UK we would say that its ‘blowing a hooley’. This saying blowing a hooley originates from the Orkney Scots with hoolan meaning a strong gale. There is something about the wind that makes me uneasy, its strength, its unpredictability, its raging nature.
And this is what I have come to learn about life’s storms, mental and emotional storms, spiritual storms, it’s all about the strength of the storm and the weakness I feel in it, the unpredictability and not being in control and the raging emotions and overwhelming thinking that comes crashing in. But I have learnt it is also about knowing where to seek shelter when the storm hits, and what different effects different shelters will have. Just like being in the shelter with a roof and enjoying a thunderstorm but in a car it is not so enjoyable.
On Saturday I was attending a book launch at Northumbria Community, and I went early to spend some quiet time there before hand. The weather on Saturday was that pounding rain. While driving in it I had to be more aware and conscious about the environment, the wet roads and what that does to breaking, at times my visibility was impaired with the windscreen wipers doing their best to enable vision of what was ahead and this meant that my speed was reduced to be safe to others and myself on the road, which then meant it took longer to travel.
Once at Northumbria Community I was to spend my quiet time in the garden shelter of St Brenden. There hanging on the wall is the beautiful image above. This image has spoken to me many times of being in the storm and St Brenden is also known for his journey across the rough seas. His prayer is one that many have said:
The prayer of Saint Brendon
“Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown
Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with you
Christ of the mysteries, I trust you to be stronger than each storm within me.
I trust in the darkness and know that my time, even now, is in your hand.
Tune my spirit to the music of heaven and somehow, make my obedience count to You.”
I spent some time sitting in the warmth while the rain pounded down, eyes closed to participate in centring prayer. After a time, I opened my eyes, walked over to the window in the door and saw a man out in the rain with his child. They were walking back to the retreat house, but the child was not bothered by the rain, they were wondering as if the rain was not there and it was a bright sunny day. There was one point when the man reached out to take hold of the child’s hand to steady them and bring them back on to the path they were meant to be walking on.
This is what my walk in my cancer storm has been like, I have not ask why me – yet I would have asked this when I was younger, I was not scared about what might be ahead – when I was younger I would have been an absolute mess, some may even said a drama queen, I did get frustrated having to wait on drs and nurses to tell me the next step on the journey and at one point this frustration made me cry, but that’s ok.
You see the difference with this storm was that I knew who was with me on the journey, I had learnt from my past storms that there is a shelter I can run too every time, to me He is God, Jesus and Holy Spirit, the blessed Trinity.
There are other shelters that I have ran too in the past, alcohol, smoking, drugs, food, relationships but all these are limited. Limited in they ability to not only give a false sense of comfort and protection, but they can not show you the way ahead, the way forward through the storms and if these other shelters are relied upon too much they themselves can become storm, even a devastating disaster waiting to happen.
Psalm 91 has been my declaration in life’s storms over the past five years. Finding it in a past storm in September 2020 in the middle of the night while not being able to sleep due to nightmares and panic attacks.
Psalm 91 (The Message)
1-13 – ‘You who sit down in the High God’s presence,
spend the night in Shaddai’s shadow,
Say this: ‘God, you’re my refuge. I trust in you and I’m safe!’
That’s right – he rescues you from hidden traps,
Shields you from deadly hazards,
His huge, outstretched arms protect you –
Under them you are perfectly safe;
His arms fend off all harm. …
… Yes, because God’s your refuge, the High God your very home,
Evil can’t get close to you
Harm can’t get through the door.
He orders his angels to guard you where you go.
If you stumble, they’ll catch you;
Their job is to keep you from falling. …
… 14 – 16 “If you’ll hold on to me for dear life’ says God
I’ll get you out of trouble.
I’ll give you the best care if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life,
Give you a long drink of salvation!”
This is not the full Psalm but what I have shared above is what has enabled me to run to God first, in all the emotions that each storm brings, in all the thinking. And this is the second lesson that I have learnt, to stop trying to not feel the pain, the fear or whatever emotions are present, to not try to stop the thinking, to not try and gain control to look for understanding. This is what the other shelters have enabled me to do, to numb the pain, emotions and to distract the thinking from facing the storm. But to run to God with it all and to ask Him to be in the storm with me, helping me to acknowledge the emotions and thinking, to accept them, appreciated them in the pain, to not try to run from them regardless of how true, false and even ugly they might be. And it has been that in that accepting and acknowledging I have been shown so much understanding about why I feel and think the way I do and how to really look at the root of why I am reacting the way I am and to see the truth in this. This takes time, commitment, bravery and faith just like driving on a road that is being pounded by rain. But it leads to a depth of knowing God I’d never thought I would know this side of life and a new way of walking in that storm knowing when I stumble or step off in the wrong direction, just like the child did that He will be there to take my hand and guide me when I can’t see the way ahead.
The third lesson I have learnt, storms don’t last forever. The rainbow does come; the rain stops and the sun shines again. There will be evidence that the storm has been, and the land has changed be it physically, mentally, emotional or just like the physical rain and wind can change the natural earth with its erosion. But some erosions lead to rivers flowing and new life growing.
If you are in a storm, you’re not alone, reach out to someone, be it family, friend or professional. I’ve done all. know that God is your shelter, your refuge. At evening prayer at Northumbria Community, the canticle is a song, and the chorus is ‘In the Shadow of your wings, I will sing your praises oh Lord’.
The link below is to a different song about being in the shadow of God’s wings.
Questions:
- What element of the natural weather do you enjoy or not enjoy?
- What has been the most extreme weather you have been in or witnessed?
- Above it is described how the pounding rain effected travel. How does this relate to travelling through life storms?
- What do you find this hardest about life’s storms?
- What lessons have you leant about walking in storms?
- Do you find comfort in Saint Brendon’s prayer, Psalm 91, and the song ‘In the shadow of your wings? If so, what is it?
Image ‘Be Stronger than each Storm in Me’ By Lynda Owen – Hussey