What Bad Weather and a Power Outage Taught Me About God and the Person I Have Become

I live on the coast in Mississippi, and if you also live that close to the ocean, you probably know how big an impact bad weather can have on the surrounding areas. The electricity often goes out, and the waters rise to a level that some people will only see in movies and television shows. As someone who has a strong fear of large bodies of water (which is extremely embarrassing to admit), times like that normally cause me a great deal of distress. Being slightly afraid of the dark doesn’t help, either, but that is an easier thing for me to handle than deep bodies of water. 

Recently, we have been dealing with a lot of rain, which I feared would cause some flooding in our yard. However, for a bit, it looked like we were in the clear. But after a couple of days, the water began to rise significantly and quickly. Panic started to creep its way into my brain like it always does, but I noticed something different this time: somehow, I knew in my heart that God would pull us through this. As someone who is a former protestant and a new Catholic who has always had severe anxiety, this feeling of warmth, calmness, and confidence in the Lord surprised me. 

It was not a feeling that I had to struggle to find, nor one that I had to force. I just felt very certain that He would ensure that we stayed safe. This taught me that my faith is a lot stronger than it used to be. Furthermore, I also learned a few other things during this time, which came after another surprise struck us. A day or so after the severe storms had stopped, we still had power, which I fully believe was because of the love God has for all of us. I had been praying about that throughout that whole ordeal, and I had been praying that those who crossed paths with the storms we were having would remain safe. But with that being said, the electricity did go off. But instead of feeling fear (which is how I normally react to such a thing), I had a feeling that that time could be used to bring myself closer to the Lord. That, I believe, happened because of multiple things. 

The first thing I noticed was that I was praying more, and I also simply sat down and did some reflecting. The darkness, as well as not being able to do much outside, gave me some more time to just be still and talk to God. And man, we had a long talk! Haha. I thought about how wonderful my faith journey has been over the last one and a quarter years, and how things changed in a very positive way when I started listening to the Lord and actually trying to form a relationship with Him. 

The reminder that He left the 99 for me is always in the back of my mind, so I have never really forgotten it. However, throughout this period of time, it was the main thing I was thinking about. While I was lying in bed and failing to sleep because of not having air conditioning due to the power being out, huge parts of my life started to flash before my eyes, and many of them were memories of times when I had turned away from God. 

I think most of us would not want someone who didn’t believe in us, but I now see that God had been wanting me to follow Him all along, and I had just been ignoring that because of how tempting the devil can be, and because of some horrible things that were going on in my life at the time. Also, I once thought that all of the suffering in the world was proof that God did not exist, but despite my lack of belief in Him, He believed in me. He saw me when I was telling others He isn’t real, He saw me when I was trying to get into some supernatural stuff I never should have touched, and He saw me when I was being my absolute worst as a human being. And yet, because God is so loving and merciful, He called me by name. 

And while I was thinking about all of that, I realized that since I started learning about Mother Mary and her willingness to do what God asked of her without hesitation, my heart has been reacting the same way towards the Lord and what it seems He wants me to do with my life. I believe that, in this way, Mother Mary has indeed done for me what many other Catholics say she does, which is lead people to her son. Because of her and the great example of a Christian that she is, I have learned a bit more about how to listen to God and how to react when I feel He is calling me to do something. 

Lastly, despite it not looking like our power was going to be back on any time soon, I saw some linemen working on it outside right after I had said a few prayers to God about it, and after I had asked for Mother Mary’s intercession. Shortly after that, we had electricity again. I am not saying that is because of the prayers that I said (though I do think they helped), but I am saying that the flooding and the power outage really showed me how far the Lord has brought me. It also showed me that hard times feel less stressful and scary when we offer the suffering we feel in those moments to God. 

In fact, because of this experience and others I have had like it, I fully believe that offering our suffering up to Him can strengthen our relationship with Him, as well as with Mother Mary. And like this experience did with me, times like this can really show a person where God has done lots of work in their lives, and how they can become better Christians.