When the sun rises again

The hardest part of writing, to me, is always the first few words. I've heard it said that in speaking, the first 30-45 seconds are crucial to capturing the audience. I believe in writing it's the first 5-10 words. Because it's the those few precious words that can capture the reader and draw them in. It's also those first few words that set the tone. They can lay a foundation for hope, or set the tone for something completely different.

If you're still reading this, then those intial words worked. Or perhaps you're still reading because you know me and you wanted to know what I find to be the most difficult aspect of what I do. Either way, thank you. And hang in there...this really is going somewhere.

The last few weeks, no...the last few months (and in some cases years) have been challenging for a lot of people close to me. Some would say it's "just life," but there have been circumstances and situations that have been especially difficult to process. Some of them avoidable; others not. But no matter who or what caused them, they are happening.

As I have faced the latest of these, something came to mind that I'd never really considered. The hardest part of facing a difficult situation, for me, is the very beginning. It's that first thunderclap that rattles me the most. It's not that the repercussions aren't hard to handle. There are lives affected, questions unanswerd and pieces scattered, left to pick up. But it's those initial moments that are the hardest, because it's then that the memory of how things "used to be" is still too fresh. And the prospect of life taking a different direction after the storm is simply foreign.

But I've also thought about something else. It's in those initial moments that God seems the closest. Those "initial moments" might be a few days; they might be a few years. But no matter how long they are, that's when God's power, his love and his grace are most evident.

I say that because, as the situation becomes more distant; as the storm calms, I have a tendency to allow life to become the routine that can so often make God's omniscience and omnipotence seem less, well, omni. It's not that I don't recognize the fact that God is God. But I get to a point that, in my mind, even he becomes somewhat  routine.

Not any more.

I've gone through enough...let me rephrase that. He's brought me through enough that I don't want him to be routine in my life. Ever. So as I draw further from the last difficult situation and closer to the next one, I am approaching each day as the adventure it was intended to be. Because it's through adventure that I can recognize my own frailty and God's ultimate power. It's only by wathcing the thunderstorm roll in and then out again that I see the majesty of my maker and fully enjoy the peace that comes when the sun rises again.