Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: STORM (10/05/17)
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TITLE: Out of Sight, Out of Mind | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marlene Bonney
10/10/17 -
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Only when a sweeping blast of lightning crosses too close to my car’s windshield do I shakily pull over to the side of the country road. Threatening, darkened clouds erase the morning’s light, frightening my usual composure into sub consciousness. The rain and hail mix pummels against the roof and hood of my car. I watch, disbelieving, as raging water engulfs the dirt road and buries my tires into a quagmire of muddy stew, gravely stones whirling into its depths like Grandma’s raisin bread batter.
Drat! After frantically rummaging through my overstuffed purse, I realize I forgot my cell phone. I can’t even call for help.
“Seriously?" I think, shivering as the fierce winds snake their tentacles into the rusted holes and crevices of my decade-old ‘beater’.
Crashes of violent thunder make me jump as I watch a tree split in two up ahead, half of it falling to the ground with a resounding thud more menacing than the washed out roadway.
“What a gully-washer!” I gasp at the forces of nature pouring out their fury like a wife’s released temper tantrum.
Gradually, the tempest slows as its gusting winds die down and an ominous silence cyclones around me.
“What next?” I wonder as I make a futile attempt to open my driver’s door, tree limbs creaking and snapping under each push against my prison walls.
The drenching rain has abated its assault, only to be replaced with marble-sized hailstones pouring down viciously with increasing fervor. My poor car shudders under its attack. My eyes mist over as I see the roadside wildflowers, once so beautiful and colorful, headless, mashed to their watery graves like trampled forest paths. Tangled telephone lines and cables have been ripped and frayed, scooping down to the ground. One of them is spewing displeasure; like a child’s fourth of July sparkler, it flickers and arcs, charring a black line on the fallen tree trunk.
Now all I hear is the savage winds rocking my car around like an amusement park ride. I bob up and down in place as the bumpers submerge in the tumultuous swirling and stinky mud seeps between my sandaled toes under the floor pedals. The vehemence of this storm is worse than any I have experienced, and I am afraid. Just when I think the rampage is lessening, another downpour rages from above, flooding the floor beneath my muddy feet.
I wish my husband was here to comfort me. I wish there was a tow truck to rescue me. I wish God would stop this onslaught—this ferocious storm that rages like a propelling all-encapsulating force swirling around me. I bow my head into the steering wheel, grasping its sides in a vice grip that could compete with super glue.
Minutes later, the savage winds subside, the incessant rain is no longer filling my car, and a siren penetrates my despair. An electric company emergency vehicle, its top light as bright as neon Las Vegas signs, parks behind me.
At last, I am rescued. . .
Later that evening, wrapped in my husband’s arms and a warm blanket, I read our nightly devotional. The Bible passage prompts me to compare today’s physical earthly storm with the unseen whirlwinds of turmoil and strife roaring invisibly around all of us—spiritual warfare between good and evil battering us with storms of trouble and circumstances that damage our feelings, our bodies and our souls. I am reminded that, even though Satan and his minions invisibly rage upon us, our sovereign God and His angels will ultimately defeat them and rescue us in His perfect timing.
Ephesians 6:12 New International Version (NIV) For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
2 Corinthians 4:18 New International Version (NIV) So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
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