The quiet of night suddenly exploded with the smashing of sound just above me. The booms of thunder came one after another like fireworks exploding in sequence. I sat up in the darkness of my room, my mind making sense of the storm raging outside. Yes a storm had been forecast, but I thought it said early morning? I looked at my digital bedside clock it was 5am. I suppose the weatherman would consider this, 'early morning', to me it's still the middle of the night! I am a late to bed person, arising anytime after 6am, rarely beforehand.
The storm continued to rage and I wondered if it had woken Mel who lives about 10kms away. It was too early to ring her and maybe, just maybe she was sleeping through it. The lightning bolts came one after another, bringing eerie silhouettes against the horizon, the thunder responded time after time. Eventually I nodded off for an hour of restless sleep.
My mind returned to 2008 when Merv, Mel and I were holidaying at Airlie Beach in Queensland a couple of days before taking a small plane to Lindeman Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Our beachside apartment was basic and little skinks ran across the ceiling as we turned the lights on at night. We pretended not to see them and kept the lights off. Mel has never been good with things which crawl and wiggle. Our last night at Airlie Beach was disrupted by a terrifying tropical storm which had started at 3am and raged for an hour or more. The morning had dawned with blue skies and no evidence of the storm. I had remembered how it frightened us and left us fearful of the weather ahead. We had no need to worry.
There are many storms in life, many of them we have no control over but we are in control of how we weather the storm.
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