Sunny memories and the gift of lightning

It has been very rainy and cloudy lately. I miss the sunshine and blue skies. But, I do believe that without the rainy grey days we wouldn't really appreciate the sunny blue skies.  Below are some of my favorite pics from the spring blossoms on some niiiiice, sunny, blue sky days. Ahhh, memories. (i thought it was supposed to be summer!)

Found around town in Northern Kentucky

And my hanging baskets in the early bloom. They are even fuller now (the vines are, anyway).

Today I was driving through the hammering thunderstorms, white knuckled and wide eyed. It reminded me of a trip with my mom in high school. We were driving to a volleyball tournament somewhere in Tennessee (Chattanooga, I think, but I'm not sure).  It was just the two of us in the suburban, and we were on a road like the Natchez Trace (again, I'm not sure which highway it was, but it was two lane, no shoulder, and surrounded by thick trees on either side so there was no way to tell where you were or if you were near civilization). It started to storm and the rain was coming down so hard and it was so dark on the road that we could barely see anything on the road. Mom was gripping the wheel, and I was gripping the handle in the passenger seat, both of us knuckles white and eyes wide. We were so worried that we'd wreck, we had slowed down to 20mph or so (even if we managed to stay on the road, we were going so slowly that a car going the speed limit could easily slam into the back of us before seeing us). 

We decided to pray - for safety, for help, for guidance, for the storms to stop, for safe delivery of any kind. (My mom kept her eyes open and on the road of course.) Shortly after we prayed, it started to lightning. Eventually we realized that the lightning was guiding and lighting our course. Every 10 to 20 seconds the lightning would strike ahead of us, lighting up the sky enough for us to get our sense of direction long enough until the next bolt would strike, again lighting our way and the road ahead. 

Eventually the storm subsided, and we reached our destination safely. I'll never forget that experience and how our prayer was answered. I think it's a great point to ponder, how our prayer was answered- but not by the storm ending. Rather by what most would consider an increase in the storms intensity and violence, which turned out to be the factor that kept us safe. hmm.... now go think about metaphors and analogies.