The storm's landfall was imminent. For days we had waited while Hurricane Fran took her course, and on this night in September 1996, her path was bearing down on the Carolinas where we lived.
A relative of ours lived further inland in North Carolina and needed our help, so my teenaged son and I drove up to be with her. After reaching her house, we spent the next several hours praying—using ideas from the Bible and Science and Health for inspiration. But at about 10 p.m., the winds picked up, cutting off the electricity, so we all retired.
I continued to pray in bed, affirming that God, divine Mind, governs His universe intelligently and wisely. I asked to be alert to any ideas that I needed to pray with to realize the safety that our divine Parent provides for us, regardless of weather conditions. I remembered a story in the Hebrew Scriptures that tells of the prophet Elijah seeing an earthquake, wind, and fire. The Bible records that God was not in any of those phenomena, but that they were followed by "a still small voice." I Kings 19:12. That voice spoke to Elijah, showing him that God was with him even in the midst of those devastating physical forces. I fell asleep assured that we would be safe.
So I was more than a little surprised to sit bolt upright at some point during the night with the winds howling and the sound of trees falling. The storm was roaring inland without slowing down. But the thought that came to me was not a fearful one; it was a verse from the Bible—something that Christ Jesus said to his disciples when they fell asleep while he prayed before his crucifixion: "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" Matt. 26:40. I considered this to be a literal and figurative wake-up call and began once more to pray. There was no light to read by, so I just stood watch mentally, refuting all the suggestions that any power could be in the wind and the hurricane and the rains when God Himself is all-power, and being grateful that He was present to keep us all safe.
Jesus stopped the storm with a simple, "Peace, be still." Instead of entering the disciples' nightmare and trying to fix it, he invited the disciples into his peace.
The Bible story of Jesus and his disciples facing a storm gave me some useful guidance. In this instance, Christ Jesus was asleep in the back of a small boat that his disciples were sailing when a fierce storm overtook them. The disciples had gone to waken Jesus and were calling to him, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?" It occurred to me that they didn't necessarily expect him to stop the storm. Imagining myself in the boat, I thought, I'd probably be a little frustrated that he wasn't helping to bail or trim the sail or row—or whatever would help save us from capsizing and drowning. I could see that I would have wanted to invite him into the nightmare of the storm in order to help us. But Jesus' immediate response was not to rush about trying to do things to save the ship. He stopped the storm with a simple, "Peace, be still." Mark 4:38, 39. Instead of entering the disciples' nightmare and trying to fix it, he invited the disciples into his peace.
I've found this is the surest approach to finding security, even when everything around me seems to be frightening, threatening, or literally stormy. Grounding myself in the Christ that Jesus so perfectly demonstrated shows me that I'm in the presence of God, in the presence of peace, no matter what the outward circumstances appear to be. This is the peace that Jesus promised he would leave with us, when he said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." John 14:27.He went on to say that his peace was not the kind of peace that the world gives. I've always thought of that worldly sense of peace as being a surface peace, subject to disruption. But true peace, spiritually based, is uninterruptible and not dependent on human circumstances. That peace is based on the knowledge of an infinite God who is all-good and the only cause. That peace is what I was experiencing that night as I "watched" prayerfully over our relative's home and all the homes in the path of that storm.
Early the next morning, I was awakened by screams from my relative. She was assessing the storm damage and was horrified by the downed trees in her yard. When I went racing downstairs to comfort her, I was amazed by what I saw. Four huge trees in her yard had fallen over. Because the area had been saturated by rain in the previous weeks, the wind knocked down the trees without breaking them into pieces. Amazingly, though, the four trees had fallen in four different directions—all of them away from the house.
Still, there were other challenges to be overcome. Not only were we without electricity, we were also without phone service. We couldn't call anyone to let them know what our needs were, and we couldn't drive out of the neighborhood. But the most pressing problem was that the basement had flooded and the sump pump was useless without electricity. If we didn't drain it, the basement and the items in it would soon be ruined.
I decided to take the Biblical promise that God will direct our paths See Prov. 3:6. quite literally and decided to walk around the neighborhood to have some quiet time to listen for divine direction. I had gone just one block when I noticed a van belonging to a company that removes water from flooded basements. I found the workman and asked if I could get my relative's home added to his list sometime in the future. Much to my surprise, he said he would come as soon as he finished with the house he was working on. We had the basement pumped out in a matter of hours.
In the middle of a crisis, what we want more than anything is to feel that there is something we can trust, something we can lean on. We can't necessarily trust that trees won't fall down or houses won't flood. In fact, we can't trust anything in the material realm to be steadfast or reliable. But, as I saw during that hurricane, there is something higher we can turn to for that feeling of security. Mary Baker Eddy characterized this something higher as "the sustaining infinite." Science and Health, p. vii. Doesn't that say it all? That infinite, or God, sustains us. And that sustaining force upholds us, nurtures us, keeps us safe. It has all the power and the limitlessness of infinity behind it. Material laws of destruction and devastation are overturned by this sustaining infinite. It establishes harmony and safety as the facts of divine reality. And that's where we find the real source of security—and not just security, but blessings.
It's always wonderful when we see a storm dissipate or head harmlessly out to sea. But when that doesn't happen, we can still find peace and safety in the understanding of the divine nature as all-powerful and everpresent good. Trusting our eternal Parent, and listening to His wise guidance, will either lift us above the storm or see us safely through it.
