Reflections by Rev. Grant Dawson

Some thoughts on thunder storms

As a child, I was terrified of lightning storms. I dreaded hearing one approaching. And when I did, I would go and hide out upstairs in my room until it passed. 

One evening, I was in the kitchen when I detected the first faint rumblings of thunder in the distance. So I turned to retreat, but, by some means, my mother encouraged me to stay to face my fears, waiting with her until the storm passed. 

And so it was that I stood there as the sky darkened and the rain began to fall. Now there were some flashes and crashes, but they seemed mild, and my mother convinced me to go out into our screened-in back porch to show the storm that I wasn’t afraid any more.

I did, and—You guessed it.—at that moment there was a flash of lightning and an almost simultaneous clash of thunder that were, I believe, the brightest and the loudest ever recorded in the annals of Hamilton history. I ran right up to my bedroom.

I later did reemerge in the kitchen, but my mother said nothing, until I finally spoke up and said, “That was horrible.” “It was.” she replied. “But you’re still here.”

We all have those storms we must face, but don’t want to—those situations we avoid regularly. And as I learned that day, in facing them, we never know what will happen. But whether we stand or fall, whether things go as we hoped or take us in a different direction altogether, after such confrontations, we can challenge similar situations a little more bravely, knowing that we have survived this sort of thing before.

We can meet the best in life, and we can meet the worst. But in success and failure, God is with us. And we are to a great extend products of the storms we have faced.

Grant

A Prayer 

Living Spirit of Loving Courage, you know how a feel about what I must face. Give me the resolve to move into the unknown, to face what I fear, and, by doing so, to discover the real meaning of faith. Amen.