coming off typhoon season has me thinking......
Typhoon season here in Okinawa runs from June-November. In the time i've been here, most of the typhoons have come closest to our island in the fall months. The season starts out like any other, with notices to keep flashlights and water handy, to tie down your outdoor furniture, and to hunker down to let the storm pass.
I've been thinking a lot about that concept recently - about letting the storm pass. It's something I never really realized i'm so terrible at doing when it comes to my own life.
I'm in a pretty rough season. The environment in my office has changed drastically - I can feel the weight of the uncertainty & stress sitting on my chest every time I walk through the doors. I can feel the static in the air that comes with rapid change. It makes me feel off-balance and anxious, and I've desperately been trying to figure out what God is teaching me right now.
I'm not gentle or gracious when it comes to feeling out of control. I stress and I push myself to the limits trying to keep everything clean and under wraps. I think myself in circles, trying to figure out any way I can to somehow how get the situation back under my control.
I work and I stress and I say 'yes' to any thing that comes my way so that maybe I can feel just the slightest bit in charge. It's an exhausting pace - it's produces the kind of deep stress that only comes from clinging so tightly to the little I feel in control of. It's the stress that comes from refusing to give it over to God.
Sitting here thinking about how typhoon season is coming to a close, and how the only thing you hear during typhoon season is that to stay safe, you have to stay in. You have to stay away from windows or doors - anything that could cause harm to you.
I feel like seasons of unknown are pretty similar to typhoon season. When they hit - they hit hard. They are dark and ominous and they sweep through breaking whatever is in its path.
Nobody tells you during a typhoon that you should run outside trying to get it under control. Nobody tells you during a typhoon that you should do everything in your power to fix it or calm it down, or turn it into something you can manage.
I think that God tries to tell us this same thing when we're deep into a season of unknowns & letting lack of control and anxiety drown us.
We can't go outside and try to control the storms. God simply wants us to stay in - to stay close to Him.
I'm learning that I have to stop trying to fix & manage & control. I'm drowning in worries that the Lord is asking me to loosen my grip on. I'm learning that in order to fully trust God I have to let stop letting every small & big thing wreck me.
Trusting in God - it's not always easy. But just like dealing with a typhoon - i'm staying in. I'm not letting the destruction outside get to me.
I'm fighting to rest in the truth that God's greater than any season of unknown, no matter how deep & long it may feel.
