Dorian

I know I should write about the hurricane here. I know I should mention our prep, and how we passed the time in a dark, candle lit room when the lights finally turned off. (We played charades!) I know I should mention animals pulled safely into the barn, tubs filled with water, and feasts by candle light with our neighbours.

I know I should mention the wind and the waves and how lucky we all are to go through a natural disaster with no real damage.

But while the hurricane raged outside, instead of worrying about losing shingles from my roof, I was dealing with tenants who couldn’t agree. We have an investment property back in Ontario that has apartments above it, and at the exact moment the hurricane began to rage, problems between our apartments came to a head. So while I was up worrying until 3am, it was with my phone in my hand, trying to calm fires, and finding myself unable to quell them. And when I could not fix them, accusations and threats were hurled in my direction.

I wore the battery on my phone out entirely. The next day, with no power to speak of, and no way to check on the fallout, I found myself, stressed, worried and frustrated and without options to fix anything.

I found myself empty and exhausted.

At around 12, I finally got my phone turned back on. (We went on a car ride and I used the car to charge my phone enough to turn it on.) When it came on, I found the situation had only gotten worse. Apparently, all my anxieties and fears were justified after all.

With no where else to turn, I asked Dave if he wanted to read the prophet portion with me.

Little known fact about our family; we are Torah observant Christians. This means, we believe in Jesus as our personal saviour. We believe he was our ultimate sacrifice and saved us from our sins, but we believe that God gave us the law to follow, and believing in Jesus does not exempt us from it. So we keep Kosher. We do our best to follow the laws of the Torah. We celebrate God’s festivals. This is a personal choice we have made, and we have been extremely blessed for it.

As Torah observant Christians, we read a portion from the Torah every Sabbath (and all Jews, Messianic and Torah observant Christians actually read the same passage each week), but there is also a portion from the prophets and the New Testament set out that can be read with the Torah reading. It always adds to the Old Testament reading in some way. On Sabbath, we hadn’t read the prophet portion. So I asked Dave if he wanted to read it with me.

It was Isaiah 51:12 – 52:12:

“I, even I, am he who comforts you.
    Who are you that you fear mere mortals,
    human beings who are but grass,
¹³ that you forget the Lord your Maker,
    who stretches out the heavens
    and who lays the foundations of the earth,
that you live in constant terror every day
    because of the wrath of the oppressor,
    who is bent on destruction?
For where is the wrath of the oppressor?
¹⁴     The cowering prisoners will soon be set free;
they will not die in their dungeon,
    nor will they lack bread.
¹⁵ For I am the Lord your God,
    who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
    the Lord Almighty is his name.
¹⁶ I have put my words in your mouth
    and covered you with the shadow of my hand—
I who set the heavens in place,
    who laid the foundations of the earth,
    and who say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”

There is no way for me to convey the sense of peace those words gave me. There’s no way for me to tell you how a nearly year long struggle, where we tried, as best we could to meet every need, and fix every fight, where we truly felt we were being bullied by a set of tenants, in just a few short verses, could feel like it was in God’s hands and he would solve it. I can’t tell you how relieved we were, or convince you how those words were written exactly for us. I can’t do it, because you would never believe me. But it’s the truth. Those words were given to us, that day, because we needed them.

Since that day, we have received piece of news after piece of news, that those problems that we thought were going to become mountains are being solved in miraculous ways. Everything is falling into place, and I didn’t have a hand in any of it.

It seems strange to me to say that I am thankful for a struggle, but I really am. Our building was actually supposed to sell in May and set us up here in Prince Edward Island nicely, but, the deal fell through. When it fell through, it triggered a set of events that very nearly left me bald and with heart problems. It was tough. It was stressful. It was horrible, but it taught me how good God is. It taught me how to rely on him. It taught me to put my life in his hands. It isn’t entirely over yet, but I can’t help but be in awe. After all, ‘who am I that I fear mere mortals when, The Lord who set the heavens in place and laid the foundations of the earth’ is on my side?