When waves soak and the waters still…
...still, He remains. (July downloads)
Summer brings longer days that stretch into late evenings, the sun shining bright on the vivid green that surrounds. Compared to the quiet, often-gray stillness of winter, summer screams and shouts Play! Go! Do! Enjoy!
But there’s nothing quite like a summer storm.
We talk a lot about the both/and, about how more than one thing can be true at the very same time, and as I considered what visual might resonate right about now, what words we might need to see and remember, I kept coming back to water.
I doubt you’re surprised. ;) You can scroll back a decade and it’ll still show on the screen: My Instagram feed is filled with pictures of the sky, of the ocean, and of flowers. Not exclusively, but frequently, to say the least.
Water that falls, water that roars or stills, water that nourishes and leads to life.
I don’t want to make more of it than it is—at the end of the day, it’s also simply that I love the beauty of the sky, the ocean, and flowers. But especially in the summer as many of us spend a pocket of time at the beach or the lake, staring out at an expanse of water… or we cozy up with a book inside while a summer storm rains down… it’s hard to miss the metaphor above or ahead or on the other side of the window.
Storms can come in any season, stretch and slip from one into another, completely ignoring the calendar page.
Last week, I wrote this on our private All The Things IG account, rain pounding against the windshield as I looked at the July print and typed these words into my phone, sending them your way with a laugh I couldn’t contain:
Day I Don’t Even Know (8? 9?) of dark skies and pouring rain, with seven more storming days ahead, but a certain order was ready for pick up and the clouds parted for half an hour, so we braved the weather and had to laugh at the irony… the words on the page, the Truth like an anchor, held secure even as the skies opened.
Endless blue
or bolts of lightning…
When the waves soak
and when the waters still…
Either way—and always—He walks on the sea and calms the storm that threatens to soak straight through.
Either way—and always—Emmanuel, God With Us in the waves of our days.
Truth like an anchor in a storm, no matter the season.
As expected, it just kept. on. raining. the rest of the week. Day after day, the ground soaked to overflowing, streams running through parking lots.
If we move from a literal storm that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight, if we move to talking in metaphors, I wonder if you’re feeling drenched right now… If it’s been one thing after another lately, like wackamole with waves that continue to pound or rain that doesn’t let up… If you’re learning to walk on those waves as you wait and watch for your believed-for, longed-for, prayed-for “Peace, be still.” I wonder if it’s been pouring for a really long time and you’re weary because of course you are.
I wonder.
(And me too.)
So… I made this July print & lock screen for you, for the days and weeks and months of storms that stretch on. For the summer seasons that bring both vivid colors and violent winds. For the moments you need to remember that you are passing through and God doesn’t leave when the waters rise.
I’d be remiss if I put the print below and then hit send without including this image, too…
Two days after picking up the print that felt more than a bit ironic in the middle of two weeks of daily storms, I sat in the Goodwill parking lot on FaceTime with my mom as the skies opened up yet again and the storm said “but wait, there’s more” like an infomercial that doesn’t end.
I held up the new-to-me navy blue snowman sweater that I bought because it immediately reminded me of Nana.1 I placed it back in the plastic bag, already looking forward to winter sweater-wearing days, and then noticed the rainbow reaching, stretching from end to end above. “I’m going to chase it,” I said before hanging up a minute later. “Why not?!”
An hour later, I stood in the puddles at the entrance of my apartment complex, singing the words to You Keep Your Promises2 while snapping pictures and attempting to get a video that captured the color and the gray right up against one another. Both/and.
The storm is not the end of the story.
The storm is not the end of the story.
The storm is not the end of the story.
It’s day I Don’t Even Know (8? 9?) of dark skies and pouring rain, with a few more storming days ahead, but late this afternoon the light arrived for a stunning sun shower… my favorite wild, weird, wonder-full weather oxymoron of all… and then there was this.
A rainbow against the gray.
I chased the rainbow—literally—driving around town until I eventually ended up at home. There, in the apartment parking lot, I looked up and saw the faint colors of a second rainbow on its way and that strange laughing-while-crying oxymoron decided to show up, too. Because it has metaphorically rained for a very, very long time. I’m dancing in the puddles but also let’s call it like it is: I’m drenched—watching and wondering and waiting, hoping and trusting in the promise but still, soaked.
An hour ago, the literal clouds parted and it was the best kind of drama. After a week of gray and dreary days, bright blue poked through.
I’m still waiting for the miracle, for the promise kept, for the stilling of the metaphorical storms, but today there are two long-ago made promises literally suspended in the sky above my head, kept for all these generations by a God who sees and doesn’t forget.
And so I want to remember, too. Dear God help me, help us, remember. It can only rain for so long and the waves that roar can only come so far because the One who said “Let there be…” at creation also walks upon the very waters that threaten to overtake. He can calm chaos with a word—and one day He will for good—but until then there’s this, a declaration on display: The storm is never the end of the story.
The promise maker is a promise keeper. 🌈
When the waves soak and the waters still… still, He remains.