You cry out in the midst of the storm, and your terror is heard. The rains beat down, your house lies in ruins, and your heart trembles for the lives of your little ones and the creatures in your care. This fear is no small thing. It is the very kind of terror God often permits to swell before He reveals His deliverance, just as He did with the disciples on the sea, allowing the darkness and the waves to grow more alarming before He calmed them. He trains us through these fears, instructing our hearts to be ready to endure and to look for Him alone.
Yet listen carefully. The damage of a house, bitter as it is, can be repaired. The sorrow over a shattered roof or threatened life is natural, but if it leads you only to despair, it works no lasting good. There is a sorrow that repairs nothing, and there is a sorrow that attains great gain. The one sorrows for wealth and property and bodies, but the other sorrows for the soul and its safety. Right now, in the noise of the wind and the rush of water, consider this: you have a house that no flood can touch. You can make your own soul a Heaven. A heaven is bright by nature, untouched and unchanged even when black clouds swarm below. It sits higher than the rains and the storms, and they cannot reach it. So too, we are called to withdraw ourselves from the earth, to exalt our hearts to that height, far above these worldly buffetings, where we remain spotless and pure through the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our Lord.
Do you see then the true shelter? The body and the home and all we see are fragile things. A body plump with ease succumbs quickly to disease, but a soul held low and humble, a soul acquainted with hardship, is not easily overthrown. Affliction itself is a great good, a stern schoolmaster from God. It works patience, and patience experience, and experience a hope that does not put us to shame. Do not sink in this affliction, but in all things learn to give thanks, for the ruin without may become the foundation of a stronger soul within.
Pray, then, with fervor. Entreat the Lord for protection, for we are utterly dependent on His mercy. Without His arresting hand, we would long ago have perished as in the flood, for all have sinned and fallen short of His glory. It is the life we now live in the flesh, lived by faith in the Son of God, that holds back destruction. Cry out to Jesus to save you and your household. But know this: the greatest danger is not the water that threatens the flesh, but the storm of sin that drowns the soul. As you pray for the earthly safety of your cats and your kittens, which is a work of kindness, be even more urgent to rescue your own soul and the souls of your dear ones from the wiles of the devil. That is the danger we must fly with all earnestness each morning when we rise.
Do not let your conduct be at war with your prayer. It avails nothing to have a right faith if the vileness of our actions strips away our protection. A soul given over to luxury, to the madness of the theatre, to the pampering of the body as if it were more than a vessel for dung, such a soul is dead while it lives and invites ruin. But a soul that lives soberly, righteously, and godly, one that tempers the want of the poor from its own fullness and walks in bright conversation, that soul stands secure. That is the one who has made the Lord his refuge.
Let this shattered house teach you of the changeableness of all earthly things. Your true house is eternal in the heavens. Run to that shelter. Compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, the holy men and women who endured far worse, let their memory recover your soul, as a cloud cools the sun's burning heat. Do not be confounded at what has happened, nor bring upon yourself the storm of rebellious thought, but give place to God's providence. He who permits the storm is the same who says to the winds, "Peace, be still." Whether He calms the outward rains or carries you through them into His eternal calm, His grace is sufficient. The life you live, you live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved you and gave Himself for you. He is your safe harbor. Hold fast to Him, and no true damage can overtake you, for Christ is your life, and to be with Him is gain, in this storm and world without end.