June 7, 2020
God’s Fireworks
When Christina, Brian, and Becky were little, way back when Becky was going by the nickname of “Lori” and we had a big brown dog they named “Dakota” after a Disney song from a movie that went on repeat for easily two months… we lived in a house with three huge windows in the living room that opened to the huge front yard and made it easy to see the summer storm lightning shows.
Dakota would hide under the table during the storms. Christina and Becky had just watched the Fireworks over the Matanzas – our one family tradition that has never been interrupted for 16 years – and they comforted Dakota by saying, “it is all okay, Dakota, this is just God’s Fireworks in the sky.”
One of the first summer storms to pop up this year and we get this picture and the following video: beautiful examples of the volatility and beauty of nature. The big girls had to tell the little ones the story of Dakota and how we came to call lightning shows “God’s Fireworks.”
We listened to the wind outside howl and thunder last night. I’m reminded of the changes in seasons. From drought so bad we had to carefully nurse our garden with deep watering twice daily to this rain so filling that our watermelons and tomatoes are splitting.
Rainy season and hurricane season are here. Change.
We choose to embrace each change in life as it comes. We adapt through changes. Sometimes we don’t like the change: like being locked away, losing jobs, losing summer camps, losing scholarship opportunities, losing VBS, losing the potential for a house… etc.
But we overcome and rise with new goals and hopes.
We shift our job focus from what makes money to what we love! We stop watering the garden and now watch for the signs of splitting fruit. We work harder. We find other opportunities. We chose to look for the good in each event. We choose to see the setbacks as challenges to rise above.
We choose not to be bitter. This is a hard one. We must understand two things: we only can move forward and we can only change ourselves. We cannot control what circumstances we are thrown into but we can control our reactions to said circumstances.
I choose love. I choose joy. I pray my children follow in my example and choose love and joy when life throws them circumstances that seem unfair.
The lightning reminds me today that the world is broken. Lightning can cause damage. Lightning can cause death. But lighting shows are beautiful, awe inspiring dancing electrons in gorgeous flashes of bright light and colored thunderhead clouds. I choose to see the potentially dangerous lighting show as beautiful: “God’s Fireworks”
I choose to see setbacks and losses as potential to rise with joy and allow the peace that passes all understanding to rule my heart. Odd that lighting makes me think of contention and losses… but that’s my weirdly wired brain.
Thank you for reading!
Type at you next time,
~Nancy Tart