I sleep

BOOM.

I normally sleep through the storm.

Not the other night, though.  That night was different.  A branch forcefully hit my window and I shot out of bed, pacing.  I simultaneously took deep breaths and sips of water to calm my racing heartbeat.  

Was this a dream? I normally sleep through the storm.

Closing my window, the storm seemed less real to me.  It became an outside force to my comfort as I laid back down.  My attempt at ignorance, though, propelled the anger of the storm.  Relentless clammer beat against my eardrums as violently as it did my window pane.  Whirlwinds whistled responsively to the banging thunder, like a lone soul howling at a roaring lion.  This battle between wind and thunder kept me restless.  

Unusual.  I normally sleep through the storm.

My longing for peace taunted me with each arising sound.  I tossed, craving audial consistency among the sporadic booming on the other side of my window.  I pulled my grandmother's antique bedside clock to my ear, my focus intent on the ticking.  But this was no use; focusing on that ticking was like hearing a metronome keep time in a never-ending sonata of chaos.  My concentration was devoured whole by the weather. 

I claimed defeat.  I normally sleep through the storm.

I moved to the kitchen and put chamomile tea on the stove, decisively making the effort to not let the storm fuel my restlessness.  Yet once again, the less I paid my acknowledgement, the more forcefully it demanded my attention.  So you know what I did?  I faced that bully of a storm who wouldn't let me sleep.  I marched right outside in the pouring rain, tea in hand at 4:26 in the morning.  I was about to cry out when I simply…stopped.  I was still amidst it all.  That rain felt alive on my half-asleep skin as I laid down in my driveway and let the inevitable take its course.  The storm was messy, scary, noisy, and refreshing.  It was abrasively invasive and encompassing.  It consumed me entirely.

It was unlike anything I'd ever known;  I normally sleep through the storm.

I always sleep through storms.  I close my window as winds howl and lightning strikes.  People around us are starving, hurting, dying, crying, lying awake at night in the storm, and yet our empathy lies dormant by our bedside; our compassion is asleep right beside us.   When I slip into bed each night, my head hits a pillow of comfort.  I wrap myself in sheets of fear and pride, blanketed in apathy.  I hear the dependable ticking of my clock as time passes day after day after day through the storms around me.  But that peculiar night, when I faced the storm, I was disgusted with comfort and angry with apathy.  I was reminded of the beauty in risk; the worth in all things horrific.  What do we even have to lose? Absolutely nothing.  Whether it's a few mere clouds or a swallowing monsoon, we have nothing to lose, until fear and pride dictate our actions.  It's in those instances when  all things are at a loss.  It all just hit me.  It hit me like the rain.

I was soaking in the downpour when I realized this.

I was saddened by the thought of all I'd lost.

I was renewed by His Truth that all weather is calmed.

I found solace facing the storm.