All Nature Speaks Of God

God’s creation spoke to me every summer on my great grandfather’s farm.  The warm tomatoes in the black fields, my bare feet on the harsh earth, goat’s milk on my cereal that tasted of the onions I fed her the day before. I loved living “close to nature”.  I felt inspired and free.

One summer our little place near the bay was hit by a hurricane. We battened down the hatches as best we could but the little octagonal screen house, our sweet space of reprieve from the nagging mosquitos and greenheads, was taken up and began rolling around the property. My mother and I ran out to save it and a single moment in the driveway has never left me.

We caught the thing awkwardly flopping on the gravel, my mom on one side and I on the other, as a flash of lightning lit the sky.  A bolt of enlightenment for us both.  As an exclamation point to the storm’s declaration of power, a sharp blast of wind blew my contact from my eye.  I instinctively reached into the gale but it was gone forever in an instant.  All at once, we dropped the impossible collapsing thing and ran back to safety.

God’s fierce winds bring destruction and renewal.  I’ve learned to see them both as one, His gift.  Beseeching Him on my walks, I am reminded of His infinite power when a strong gust altogether moves me, the heavy limbs above my head and the cluttered ground at my feet.  Stand back. It is Mine.

His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. Nahum 1:3b