Shelter from the storm

this morning i was struck by the sweetness of a particular fella in my life and reminded of the sweetness of God. i am terrified of bad weather...it totally freaks me out. doesn't matter if i'm in my car, standing out in the middle of the weather, or sitting safely in my casa, or even sitting in the middle of a sturdy storm shelter (though i've never actually been in one of those during a storm...). anyway, in the wee hours of the morning, the weather got NASTY at our house. i awoke to a loud booming and really bright lightning that was almost nonstop for about 20 minutes. i blurted out, "oh, i'm scared!" ryan, who must have woken up to the loud noise to, or my loud mouth-grabbed me and rolled me over him to the "safe" side of the bed. (the side i was sleeping on was very near our glass door leading out to our porch) he then held me near as the storm raged on outside. and as i thought about what a sweet gesture that was and about how safe it made me feel (when, really, let's be honest-if a tornado tore our roof off or a tree feel right into our wall, it would probably hurt both of us pretty bad-not just the one closest to the door...)...i got this picture in my head (or maybe more an idea) of my sweet husband with his arms wrapped around me, "protecting" me from the storm...and then our sweet heavenly Father with his large arms (even though maybe he doesn't have actual arms, just stay with me...) wrapped around both ryan and i, keeping us safe. and not just from the bad weather going on outside, but from the storms of life that we have been battling in lately. sometimes life really is a lot like that storm that was raging outside this morning-and a lot of times we don't get to sit in the shelter of our nice, cool casas...sometimes we stand out there as the storm beats down on us-sometimes really hard. but you know, what a comfort it is to know that God has not left us during these times. there's the country song in my head for some reason, even though i'm usually not even a fan of that genre of music... i haven't a clue who sings it or even the rest of the words, but somewhere in the chorus, she sings "God is great, but sometimes life ain't good. and when i pray, it doesn't always turn out like i think it should..." isn't that the truth? but it's a good thing...good thing i'm not in control like so often i want to be! what a terrible mess i'd make of things...