And
what to do in the storm
My life has not been without storms. If you’re human, you can probably relate. Did you know this is a guarantee given in the scriptures? Jesus says in John 16:33,
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
We will have difficulties in this world, but Jesus has overcome the world. Isn’t that good news? So why doesn’t it feel like it? If God’s word is true (and it is), why is it so hard to have peace? Why does it feel impossible to be of good cheer and believe he has really overcome the world? Why does it feel like my tribulations will never end or they keep coming one after another? As they say, the struggle is real, and the problem is not Jesus.
I read Acts 27 the other day and had to stop at the end and go back and read it again. I saw myself right there in the ship with Paul, going through my own personal storm, and it seemed like every way I turned it got worse and worse. The kids say, I feel ya.
Six years ago I was hit head-on and I have never been the same. These have been probably the most frustrating, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching years of my life. If you’d asked me the day after the wreck, I would have told you that I was going to get over it quickly and move on just like I always had. I lived by the motto “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” and I expected that to continue. Except it didn’t.
I feel like I’ve been on the ship with Paul. I see my last six years so very clearly in his journey to Rome. From the very beginning, the winds were contrary (v4). That means they were blowing the opposite way from where the boat wanted to go. The crew could still get them there, it was just going to take a lot longer and involve a lot more work to make it happen. It would be more dangerous. This has definitely been my story. What I thought I could just “get over” has overtaken my existence and been the fight of a lifetime.
After struggling around a few islands, it says in verse 12 they couldn’t find a safe place to winter. I hear that. I tried a lot of different things to help me deal with the crazy things that were happening in my mind and body, and I never could find a safe place to stop and rest. It just kept coming.
Then in verse 13 they got a soft south wind. Finally, they could set out again in relative safety, a little sweet relief, but wait . . . verse 14 brought a tempestuous wind so strong it had a name, Euroclydon. It was so bad the ship couldn’t bear it, so the crew let her drive. In other words, they stopped trying to steer and just let the monstrous wind and waves push the ship wherever they would. I have felt that too, like being tossed in big surf at the beach, not knowing which way was up or where the shore was, fighting to catch a breath.
In verse 16, they got a tiny reprieve and found shelter near a little island called Clauda, then in 17 they “used helps, undergirding the ship.” They were using all the knowledge and skill and equipment they had to hold their situation together. I feel this deeply.
I read book after book and website after website and consulted with every kind of doctor I thought might have even the smallest glimmer of help for me. I prayed and asked the ladies to pray over me and posted Bible verses on the mirror and in the kitchen. I sat on the front porch and listened to the Bible being read to me. I barely held on.
I’m not saying these things didn’t help, but sometimes our rescue does not come the way we think it should. Sometimes we expect God to calm the storm but instead he holds out his hand so we can hold tight.
Finally at the end of 17, the Bible says they “strake sail.” I didn’t know what that meant, so I looked it up. To “strike sail” can mean a couple of different things. It could be that they lowered the sail to let the boat be driven by the storm, but God already said that in verse 14. Why would he say it again here?
“Strike sail” can also mean that they lowered the sail as a sign of admitting defeat.
I remember being at the point of striking sail. I know when I admitted defeat. I’d done all I could do and was at the end of my mental and emotional rope. It’s not a good feeling. And still the tempest continued.
In verse 18 they started throwing cargo overboard. In verse 19 they threw the ropes and tackling—all the stuff they would use to sail—or control—the ship. In verse 20, “all hope that we should be saved was taken away.” Been there, done that. I distinctly remember lying in my bed in Asheville having no hope and wondering if this is what depression felt like. I just knew I was damaged beyond repair, I would never be right again. My life as I knew it was over.
And before you call me a drama queen, try to walk in my shoes. I’d never been in that situation before. I knew nothing about mental health and car accidents and no one told me I had PTSD—at least that would have given me a clue. But I had nothing. I was mentally falling apart with no clue what was going on or where to turn for help.
Then look what Paul does. Verse 21 is the great I-told-you-so in the Bible. Paul, a prisoner among almost 200 others, tells the crew they should have listened to him and not tried to sail. But here they are, suffering “this harm and loss” because nobody listened.
And, boy, if that doesn’t describe me for the first two years after my accident. I was harmed and I suffered loss. I felt like no one was listening to me. I kept asking, “What is wrong with me?” To say that all my hope was taken away is no exaggeration. It was an awful place.
But look at the first word in verse 22:
And.
You’ve suffered harm and loss and . . .
And now I exhort you to be of good cheer.
These guy are in the midst of the worst storm of their lives, they’ve done everything their training and their experience have taught them to do, they’ve chucked all the cargo, all the tackling, they’ve admitted defeat, they’ve suffered harm and loss, they’ve tried every Hail Mary. And Paul wants them to be of good cheer?
I remember the day my (Christian) lawyer told Ben and me that I needed to go to therapy. He said it very matter-of-factly, like it should not be a surprise, but it was not anything I’d ever considered. I fought the idea. I thought it would make me a colossal failure if I had to “resort” to psychotherapy. Was I such a loser that I couldn’t get through this with God’s help?
And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship.
But maybe . . . maybe this was God’s help.
Go to therapy. You won’t die, but the ship? The person you’ve been all these years? The woman who has spent her whole life hiding emotions so no one thinks she’s a bother, swallowing fears so no one knows how un-Christian she is, and being a people-pleaser to her own detriment? That ship isn’t going to make it.
Harm and loss. No more ship. AND. Good cheer.
Both, and, simultaneously.
Yes, you were hit head on. Yes, you have suffered for two years, thinking you are crazy, permanently broken. You’ve lost two years of your life to anxiety and panic attacks and depression and unreasonable fear of spiders and not being able to let anyone else drive and so much not knowing and what on earth how did I get here? Harm and loss.
And, be of good cheer.
How? How could I be of good cheer when I was still in the middle of such a mess? How could the sailors be of good cheer when the tempestuous wind was still howling with the same fury? Paul explains:
For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,
Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.
Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.
Paul knew whose he was—God’s. And he believed that God would perform exactly what he said.
Paul got a message from an angel. I got one from a lawyer. There’s a bit of a difference there, but could God use a lawyer? Could he use a therapist? He used a donkey in Numbers 22.
Again, Paul says in verse 24, “Be of good cheer.”
Why? “For I believe God.”
Did I believe God? I wanted to, but I would by lying if I said I didn’t have a lot of doubt at that point. I was very afraid that in my broken state I would fall for any psychobabble hokey that got dished out in the therapy room. Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
So I found a Christian therapist (not a biblical counselor, but a licensed professional counselor with LPC or LMFT after her name) and started going, not because I had so much confidence in psychology, but because I held on to a tiny shred of belief and God made up for what I lacked. I trusted that the message to go was from him and that he would use it to help me.
I didn’t go because I thought I was so smart and knew what to do. I’d tried that and failed spectacularly. I’d done everything I could think of or Google to do and nothing worked. So I decided to believe God, that he could use something I would never have thought of and would never have tried without his prompting. Isn’t that always the way it is?
Did Paul’s storm stop then? No. It continued 14 more nights. Can you imagine? That’s a lot of dark nights in a little ship being thrown around like a toy boat in a hurricane.
They threw out the anchors (v29). They let down a lifeboat (one last attempt at self-help?) (v30). Paul stopped them from using the lifeboat (v31), saying, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.” Don’t go back to trying to save yourselves. Believe God. He said he would save every life, now wait for him to do it. Don’t try to escape this trial in your own power. Watch God come through like he said he would. So in verse 32 they cut the ropes to the lifeboat. What a terrifying feeling, having not one thread of connection to any kind of tangible help. I’ve felt that too.
Then here comes Paul again, being ridiculous. Now that you’ve given up every single thing that can save you, have a snack.
I don’t know about you, but I am the opposite of a stress eater. When the tension is high, the last thing I want is to put food in my mouth. It’s a wonder I don’t waste away. But this wasn’t about eating; it was about relaxing and trusting God. Paul says in verse 34:
Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you.
He so firmly believed that God was going to preserve their lives like he said he would, he wanted them to eat for their health. If they were going to die, eating wouldn’t have mattered. But they weren’t going to die. God had given his word. He would bring them through the storm and they needed to demonstrate their trust in him while it was still raging.
Oh, boy. That’s the hardest, isn’t it? To demonstrate that you believe God while the storm is at its worst?
Once they’d eaten their fill, they threw the rest of the food overboard. There was nothing left. They showed God they were trusting him, then placed all their dependence on him to make it happen.
Verse 39 starts out, “In the morning . . .”
Don’t we always see more clearly in the morning? They discovered a little creek they thought they could drive the ship into, then they’d be close to shore. Was the little creek there the night before? Of course it was. But so often when I am trying to get out of my storm, I don’t see the help God is placing right before me. I’m too focused on my own ideas, my own plans, my own worries.
Eat. Get some sleep. God will show you the answer.
So they drove the ship up in the creek and ran it aground. The front stuck in the mud and the back was beaten apart by the crashing waves—remember it’s still storming. Picture them all holding on for dear life, wind howling, rain coming in sideways, the stern of the boat flopping around and chunks breaking off into the churning sea.
The soldiers, afraid the prisoners would escape, wanted to kill them all. But the centurion—remember Julius?—wanted to preserve Paul, so he ordered everyone to swim or hold onto a piece of wood and get to shore however they could.
Holy cow, this is exactly how my journey through PTSD has felt. An incredible storm that goes on and on and on and never lets up, no hope I will get through it, my ship run aground and beaten to smithereens in the tempest, and me finally throwing myself into the sea and hanging on for dear life.
Some days it still feels like this. But look at the last verse:
And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land.
God kept his promise to Paul, as he always does. We Christians like to joke about the phrase “it came to pass,” like, surely it won’t stay this way. Surely it will pass. Surely this will get better. And sometimes it does.
But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the storm just goes on and on and there is no indication it will ever calm down or stop. Sometimes life is hard and it doesn’t get easier.
But God. Throughout the scriptures, God walks with his people through the wilderness, through the valley, through the storm. The situation may seem hopeless while we are in it, but God knows the end. He sees the big picture. He uses the tribulations we are promised in life to bring us good and himself glory, maybe now, maybe not until we get to heaven. But he will bring it to pass.
I do feel like I am seeing blue skies and feeling the wind abate. I have more good days than bad now, and that’s encouraging. It’s easier to be of good cheer. I’ve (hopefully) lived through the worst of it and come out the other side still standing, still holding on to Jesus, still knowing he is with me in it.
Harm and loss—and—be of good cheer.
How?
Remember whose you are. Believe that he is with you.