The Under-Side

 Ripping winds wake up me up in the wee hours of the morning and I realize, as I awaken from my deep slumber, that this is no mild storm. Typical Fall here in Alaska, there's always a major windstorm that happens right before Winter has set in, and this must be time for it in 2026. The forecast had called for strong winds elsewhere, not here. And isn't that often just the way of things... we tell ourselves the storm will stay elsewhere - until it arrives upon us with a vengeance and we are caught off guard. I lie in bed, watching the flicker of the nearby highlight and wondering if we'll still have power by the morning. I doubt it. But I pray for it to stay on. And I catch myself once again asking God for comfort when He may envision something else. 

I toss and turn for awhile, then eventually nod off again and, upon waking for good in the morning, the only light coming in is the tiny bit from around the shades by my windows. Power off. Flashlights come out, and so do the candles because it's the arctic life here late in the year and the daylight is limited. No morning shower. Adapted breakfast. Changed routine for the day. Generator gets fired up to keep the house warm and the fridge and freezers cold and I see on my Facebook feed that there are thousands out of power. Hurricane-force winds have created havoc on the surrounding area, and this isn't going to be just any regular Friday. I alter my plans and settle in for a day of waiting out the storm, and haven't I gotten more practice at such things than I'd care to admit! 

But as I'm sitting there, working on some writing projects and listening to the gusts whistle and whip outside, praying for it to die down so I can get back to my normal routine, the picture suddenly pops into my mind of the silver-underside of tree leaves when they're green. You know what I'm talking about, don't you... that faded part that when the winds kick up, bends itself upward so you can see the beautiful veining and grayish tone underneath? Yeah. Randomly, I started thinking about that. Outside the trees are totally bare and hardly a leaf remains, especially as the storm rolls through. Yet I couldn't get past that idea that there's always an underside to everything. There's an untold story, an unhealed pain, a hidden something that only gets exposed when the winds come. Almost like the storms have a strange purpose... 

And it strikes me hard when I realize that, in asking for escape from this inconvenience, I'm refusing the beauty that comes with it. In my desire to be comfortable, I could be missing a moment I'd later regret. Look for the underside, I feel spoken in my soul. And oddly enough, the wind isn't such a bother. In that instant, I'd let to slow down and ask again what this makes possible. So what if the power is out for a few hours! Truly! Is this really the worst thing? And I see how we all often make the little things to be the worst things when actually, even the genuinely worst things are often eventually the best things because of who we turn out to be on the other side. This is an unfortunate part of being human: we try to escape the very stuff that is part of our formative journey simply because we've been sold the lie that comfort is our deserved right. We want the storms to leave instead of our lower self to die. 

Five hours later, winds now mostly gone and power back on, I shake my head that I was even losing sleep and stressing over this at all. I've been through this a bazillion times before, and I know what to do. But it's like I forget in the moment: I lose sight of how I've survived the storm life in the past and I think the latest one will be my undoing instead of remembering the underside I often overlook. And my late best friend's words come to mind when he once reminded me that there was a silver lining to every cloud and that his choice was always to see the silver lining. What's underneath. Always what's underneath. Never what is on the surface of anything because that never tells the whole thing. With a person, with God, with our storms. In order to see things for what they really are, something has to make you look beyond. Turn over the leaf and stare at the bottom. Dare to get to the heart of what exists instead of always living life on the top. 

I see it now, and I'm convicted: you can't see the underside unless the winds blow. You can't understand the silver lining unless the clouds come. And you can't know the heart of yourself or anyone else until something has been turned upside down. Perhaps in the bending and shaking and howling of it all, a new truth emerges that changes everything. Maybe the storm is exactly what's needed in order to stop being blind.