Braving The Storm

As I sit and type this, a storm is raging outside. A massive, scary, big storm... full of rain and hail and lightning and thunder and the worst of all... tornados.

Already tonight, 7 people have been killed in Oklahoma... homes and businesses flattened. And though every life matters, 7 is a small number compared to the 122 that are reported dead in Joplin, with another 1500 missing.

Every year around this time, we start preparing our "safe places." We know this is what life in the midwest means; April showers bring May twisters.

It still is nerve-wracking and unsettling. When your TV screen is washed in red and pink (the worst colors when it comes to weather)- it's hard to think about the blue skies that will return in the blink of an eye, making you think you imagined the scariness, the destruction.

But that's what you hold onto. The blue skies. They always come back. Even when the worst storms are raging around you, there is always something to hold onto.

We forget about those "safe places" we prepared long ago, when things were calm and peaceful. We forget about the safe places that are always open to us- whether we prepared them or not.

I sit and write this out because it's a good reminder to myself- and to anyone else going through a storm, brought on by mother nature or otherwise.

The safe places are always there. The blue skies will always come back.

And boy, those blue skies after a storm just can't be beat.