Trust.

There was a tornado that touched down this afternoon near Rockford, Illinois.  My family lives an hour away from Rockford.  So, I'm sitting in "my room" (which was formerly the dining room, in case you didn't know) and I hear the "Warning Noise" on the T.V. while I'm watching National Geographic's Great Migrations on my computer (which, can I just say, is fantastic.  It's kind of graphic, but it totally redeemed Netflix for me.  I missed it while I was in the hospital, and I was so sad.)  You know the warning noise I'm talking about, the annoying bleeping that pops up in the middle of nowhere, at the most inconvenient time while you're watching T.V.  I heard hard rain outside, and asked my sister, Nat, to go check it out.  She was like, "Oh, there's just a tornado warning out for some counties", and then she listed them off.  They sounded close to where I am currently laying.

So, I kind of started freaking out.  My parents had just slipped out to go pick up the other twin, and do a little grocery shopping for Thursday.  (Isn't it funny how these things happen right after the strong, able-bodied people leave?  Nat can barely lift my left leg.  I say this in love & admiration for the girl.)  I started spazzing out, and was like, "What are we going to do if the tornado touches down here?"  I'd never given it a thought.  I have thought about fires, but there is a gigantic window right next to me that I could break open with the piece-o-junk-laptop I'm typing on & wiggle out, or wait for the firepeople to come save me.  They would see me waving crazily from the highway.

A tornado is different - I'd have to make it to the basement.  Natalie turned and looked at me very sternly, and said, "Catie, if a tornado comes, I'll drag you down to the basement by your legs."  She was dead serious.  I'm not kidding when I say I have the best family in the world.  The fact that she acknowledged my presence last night at her concert meant a lot, and here she is figuring out a rescue plan.  Can you just picture me doing the crab walk down a flight of stairs while a tornado is whirring around?  It actually did touch down in Caledonia & McHenry (which is even closer to my house.)  It caused a lot damage, so I have a lot to be thankful for & many people to pray for.  Luckily, no one was killed, but there were quite a few people who were injured.

It's really hard to trust the people around you, isn't it?  One of the hardest things for me to do is to physically let go of the door jam posts on the way to the ramp in the garage.  Once I let go, my direction is no longer in my hands.  Gravity, my wheelchair & my parents are officially in charge.  The same goes for getting in the car.  I have no control while I'm being hoisted into the air.  Surrender is one of lifes greatest challenges, I think.  It goes right along with humility and hope.  Trusting others is something that I have often talked about in the last couple of weeks, but it's something that is really, really important.  I trust that when people say they are praying for me, that they actually are.  I trust that my parents don't have growing feelings of frustration that they aren't telling me about, or that they aren't going to give me the boot before I'm ready to leave the nesty nest.  Again.  I trust that my doctors know what they are doing, and that when they say, "things look good", that they are actually telling the truth.  Trust permeates how we live our lives, and how we think about everything.  And, we all have issues because those thoughts about all of those people sneak into my head, and I start to say things like, "I wonder if they really..." or "Do they really mean that?"

My other little sister texted me this morning, early in morning.  She said, "Read Romans 15:13" and some other mushy stuff.  (Can I just also say that God is a God of redemption because all of these things I'm saying about each of my family members are not things that I always would have been able to say.  I have not always been close with my family, and I went through a very dark & selfish time.  But God is so faithful, he has & is redeeming my family in ways I never would have imagined.  Just as a side note.  Thought I'd put that out there because I'm braggin' on the fam. so much.  I take no credit for their awesomeness.  I do not deserve any of it, but they give me grace anyway.)  Here's the verse:

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

God is a God of hope.  And this God fills people with all joy and peace, not just some, but all.  Only as we trust in him.  And this is one of the biggest things I have been learning over the last year.  From student teaching all the way to this very moment: trust.  Here's the definition of the word from dictionary.com: "reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence."  Well, God has proven his integrity, strength, ability and surety to me over and over and over and over and over again.  I'm not sure how well I rely on it consistently.  And, the other things is that the last word is something of stumper for me.  I'm going to tell you another secret, something you can't tell anyone else, okay?  I. Lack. Confidence.  I may have a lot of people fooled, and I can't believe I'm admitting it, but I don't feel confident in a lot of the things I do.  Hence the trusty issues. 

Then we get to the second part of the verse.  (Sorry this is getting so long...I'll hurry it up...)  Know what I think of?  Waterfalls in Hawaii that I saw on "Atlas" yesterday on Netflix.  (I love the Discovery Channel.)  Huge, roaring waterfalls that flow in to crystalline bodies of pure, unadulterated water.  The kind you can drink without a filter and not get weird parasites that eat your liver and your brain.  That's what I think of when I think of overflowing with hope.  And, not by my power, but by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is something that freaks some people out...I know I used to be weirded out by it myself.  I have been learning about what it is more and more over the last few years, and it has made me fall more in love with God.  The Holy Spirit is what was at work when I hit the ground at 32 feet per second, but still had this amazing sense of peace that penetrated my bones.  It was what was at work when the person I was climbing with that night & someone else we had just met bent down to pray with me in the middle of gym, and stuck by my side through the night & into my journey.  It was what was at work when the orthopedic surgeon was magically able to operate the very next morning, and feel hopeful after he was done performing the surgeries that were supposed to keep me in the hospital for two weeks & not five days.  It's what enabled me to have joy and peace in the midst of an immense amount of pain and suffering.  It's what spurred the thought of a sister to send such a verse to someone like me who needed to hear it.  It's what a lot of people would call "coincidence".

The Holy Spirit is a role model for perseverance, working hard, and giving grace.  It's not some mysterious flame over a candle floating in the sky.  It's not something that can be tamed by people - in fact, just the opposite.  It's undefinable, in a way.  Always on the move.  The Bible talks about how it intercedes for us "with groans that words cannot express."  But it's something that Jesus gave to his followers as a gift, a deposit as he was leaving for heaven.  And, it's something that we are called to depend on as we learn more and more about it.  I look at it as God's way of not abandoning us, leaving us like orphans in a dark & sometimes dismal world.  (Do you know what dismal means?  Dismal: causing gloom or dejection; gloomy; dreary; cheerless; melancholy)  Passive.

So, through the power of the Holy Spirit, (not that weird of a thing, and yet, kind of at the same time) I pray this for you, just as Paul did to the church in Rome (a very dark and dismal place): May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Read it again.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Trust.  In Him.