The Storms >CAN< Save Us

Usually we fear storms...not just the weather event kind of storms, but those painful, destructive, chaotic, overwhelming times in our lives when, as an old hymn writer put it, "sorrows like sea-billows roll".

A friend of mine reminded me the other day about a peculiar thing that happens in the story of Jonah: Jonah tries to run from God, but on his sea voyage is thrown overboard into the stormy sea so that other sailors won't drown too, and is swallowed by a great fish. In the belly of this fish (whale?) he calls out to God - but not for help! Instead he quotes Psalms of thanksgiving.

Now maybe I'm wrong, but this seems an unusual reaction for a human, in the face of grave danger, to be thankful. I remember as a kid someone tried to reconcile this for me by telling me Jonah thought the fish was going to save him from drowning....but I don't really buy this anymore....I think in the belly of a fish you pretty much assume you've found one path to death that just smells worse than drowning. Granted, it's probably true that Jonah is more of a parable than a historical account (like Job), where the truth of what it means is more the point, rather than the plausibility of the story details. Whether or not we accept the physics of being swallowed by a fish doesn't so much matter - the story is true in what it teaches us about life and God, and in this case storms and suffering.

Some of you know that I help people whose lives have been devastated by car accidents, workplace injuries, and the like. My office is full of human tragedy and often folks come to me in the midst of the worst storms of their lives. Now that I have a few years behind me of doing this work, and I've learned to look at my own life differently, I've come to observe an interesting pattern...

....the storms can save us.

Even when we think they are bringing our destruction and we need to be rescued from them, it is often the storm that is rescuing us from something.

Like the three people I've seen in two years that had car accidents, which led to MRI's, which in turn led to the perfectly timed discovery of previously undiagnosed tumors that were removed and spared their lives for many years afterward.

Or the folks I've seen that tell me they never lived for anything important until they lost all of the unimportant things in an accident.

Or the second-career people who thought that being downsized was the end of the world, until they discovered their old job wasn't actually good for them or their family.

Or the competent professional who found that being vulnerable and relying on others for help after a family tragedy brought new friendships he could never have imagined.

Or the marriages that were never truly intimate until one partner had to learn to depend on the other because their body wouldn't permit radical independence anymore.

The storms can save us. They often do. We may not see what they are or what they have saved us from, but so long as we remain open to being changed and taught and transformed, the storms can take us from a hell we may not have imagined or seen.

So, perhaps Jonah gives thanks when he realizes that he cannot run from the presence of God. That even in the belly of a fish, he cannot flee. Perhaps he recognizes that the storm has saved him, and that's why he doesn't call out for help to be rescued. Maybe he sees that running from God can bring a life worse than death.

Now I appreciate the objections this will raise. I specifically am saying that storms "can" save us, because I don't want to ascribe all human suffering to being an intentional act of God to fix people. I think suffering is fundamentally a mystery, and I don't have the hubris to write a blog post that claims to resolve it. And I also realize that telling people in the midst of a storm that what they're going through could save them....isn't very helpful. Storms are painful and destructive, and our biology predisposes us to pursue perceived safety. But it does seem that at the right time we humans can look at our dark times in life and find something meaningful, helpful, and even life saving.

And maybe part of growing is learning to trust that not all storms are something to be saved from or avoided, but that storms can save us, even when we think running is the safest thing to do.