Jesus in My Storms

   
     I received a challenging word at a retreat last weekend. The speaker was talking about trusting God with our futures and surrendering our best made plans to Him. Wow. That spoke straight to this heart. Talk about pertinent for my junior year of high school: the crazy year, the busy year, the year of tests and SATs and ACTs and college visits. This year has been easier in some places than I expected, but it has also been trickier in many places than I could have ever anticipated. Letters from universities filled with degree plans crash over my head like waves...exhilarating until you realize with terror: you are out of control. My heart aches for stability. I want so badly to know the future, to be sure of what's next in my story as if I can send in my check of approval before life takes over.
     But it is in this place I find Jesus. When the waves crash over and I realize I'm no longer in control, I look up and see that He still is. It reminds me of the many stories in the Bible where we find Jesus with His disciples in the middle of different storms at sea. In these various stories, Jesus calms the waves, sleeps through a storm, and walks on water. (Seriously, these are all things He did. Check out Matthew 8:24-27, Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 4:35-41, Mark 6:45-56, Luke 8:22-25, or John 6:16-21 if you don't believe me.)
     Is it possible that in the most tumultuous, storm-like seasons of our lives we can find Jesus? We can see Him in the back of our boat, chilling and waiting for the storm to pass, even as we panic our little human hearts out. If Jesus calmed the waves, slept through a storm, and walked on the water for His disciples and friends in Bible times, why do we believe He won't do the same for us today?
     The funny thing is that when we don't trust and don't surrender our plans to God, we are putting more faith in our own plans, which are based on our own limited view of the circumstance, rather than His plans, crafted from a much fuller view of our lives from heaven. When you think about it, how silly and preposterous is that?
     Jesus is teaching me, slowly but surely, to find Him even in the midst of the storms. Looking back on the various storms I've walked through, I can see that perhaps it is in the storms that I have seen Him most clearly. My prayer is that for this season of life, when the road ahead is uncertain and I have no idea what the years to come will look anything like, I can trust in Him and His perfect plan. Unlike Jesus, I can't see the end of the storm. But He does--yes, He does--and that is a truly beautiful thing.