The Storm

Surrender.

What a concept.

It sounds so lovely and easy to do.

But when you’re in the eye of the storm, it can feel like the fight for your life.

Because surrender asks us to release control.

And if we lose control in the heart of the storm - what will keep us alive?

One of the great lessons of my life has been learning how to surrender in times like these. 

To submit to the storm.

To let it take me.

Time and time again - the moments I do, I am in awe of what I find.

There is a strange beauty here, a mightiness - cloaked in chaos and destruction.

An organizing power that is designed to restore balance and harmony.

It seems no matter how many times I’ve traveled through the storms of my life, I’m humbled by my humanness. Each storm I face, especially the big ones, I think “this will be the storm of all storms.”

This will be the one that shatters me.

It’s fierceness.

Relentlessness.

Destructiveness.

This will be the one that ends me.

Or at the very least ends my life as I know it.

Surrender isn’t graceful for me.

I don’t go down without a fight.

After I’ve relentlessly exerted all the force, willpower and might I can muster up in this body and mind of mine.

I finally wave the white flag and let the storm have its way with me.

I lay down my sword.

I remove my heavy armor.

And I have no choice but to soften and allow myself to be truly present inside of it.

Exposed to the harsh elements of it.

Open my heart to the uncertainty and sheer terror of it.

Allowing the storm to just be.

One foot in front of the other.

Even on days when I can’t see the path in front of me.

My mind and body may be terrified in this uncertainty -

But my Soul seems to know something the rest of me doesn’t understand yet.

There’s work being done here.

A cleansing.

This storm - it’s changing me.

Washing away outdated patterns.

Old ways of being that I’ve outgrown.

Narrow views of what I thought was possible begin to shatter.

And I start to realize that Life isn’t just messily tossing me about -

She’s breaking me open to something new.

My visions for my life are so grand.

And the version of me that exists in those visions is so free. A version of me I can almost feel in my bones.

Almost.

And it’s the storms of my life that are painfully, sometimes excruciatingly, removing the last of my shackles, revealing the most deeply rooted of my hidden limitations, and stretching my mind far past my comfort zone - into the self I glimpse in those visions.

But I need more than just a realization –

My stubborn mind needs to be pushed to the very edge of what my human body can hold.

And only then…

I stop bracing.

Controlling.

Fighting.

Forcing.

I let go.

I free fall.

I surrender.

So, my friend, if you too are in a storm in your life right now.

Please know that you are in good company.

What if you softened into the eye of your storm?

Even when you think you may not survive this one.

That this storm - will surely be the one that takes you.

All the upheaval.

All the destruction.

All the chaos.

What if this storm you are facing, is not here to break you?

What if it’s here to crack you open.

Baptizing you in its holy waters.

The death of an old way of being,

Birthing you into a new way of being.

What if this is not the end, but a beginning.

What if Life has a plan for you far greater than the one you had planned for yourself?

The same wisdom that has our planet orbiting the sun and a baby to grow in the womb -

Is organizing around you.

Is pulling you forward.

It knows better.

May these words be your reminder today -

You have not been forgotten.

You have not been overlooked.

You are held.

You are guided.

You are beloved by Life.