W is for WINDY

I'm not frightened of the wind at home. Living on a hill we get our fair share of stormy nights as the wind whistles through the valley below our house, but for some reason no matter how stormy it appears to be outside, we remain relatively sheltered though seemingly exposed. I guess the hedges in the fields and the number of large trees around the perimeter take most of the battering leaving us in relative peacefulness. And there is something oddly stirring in being able to sit inside and hear the wind howling in the trees or lying, wrapped up in bed, feeling safe from the monster causing havoc to nature.

However, I feel less secure about storms when away from the homestead. Maybe it's the uncertainty of the building that I am temporarily using as home or maybe it's the certainty that the storm is much worse than what we experience here but there is no doubt that I feel a definite unease about the whole event. And as for being at sea or in the air, well I just don't cope with that at all. I remember on one occasion, returning from a trip to Liverpool and watching the crew attempting to manoeuvre the ferry out of harbour as it kept colliding with the side walls, then having to endure a sleepless night with huge waves crashing constantly and noisily against the ship and our voyage consisting of more ups and downs per minute than the average roller coaster. It sure was an unforgettable night, with most of the staff and passengers not too interested in the canteen but sitting rather closer to the bathrooms than normal and then to have to endure several extra hours at sea because the storm had slowed down our progress. Likewise, I can recall a similar windy day when our small plane took off from Belfast City airport and was thrown about in the sky for at least ten minutes before getting beyond the storm and some sense of normality. So I'm OK with storms as long as I'm sitting in the living room!

Still, (and that's a strange word to use when talking about wind), I suppose it's often not the storm that is the problem but the aftermath of devastation that it leaves in its wake. We normally experience most of our windy nights in October, which is no comfort to apple farmers, who find most of their crop on the ground, but the greatest problem's almost always an interruption to the electricity supply for hours and sometimes days. In October, it's not so bad, though still inconvenient, but on Christmas Eve, it's slightly more disconcerting, especially when the powers that be (another unfortunate choice of words) suggest that it will be several days before supply is restored. And so it was, a few years ago, that we faced Christmas Day,with the in-laws and outlaws coming for dinner, turkey, vegetables and desserts all prepared, but nothing cooked. I looked at the small camping gas stove that mum and dad owned and decided that not even the most optimistic chef could have prepared a Yuletide dinner on its meagre flame. It's wonderful how the mind works in overdrive in such situations and such a scenario had been circling my mind since the wind had reached gale force the previous day. Knowing that the local village rarely had an electricity blackout and seeing the lights no more than a mile away, we made a decision to save the day. For this would be the Christmas morning,we would spend in the primary school we ran, in the staff room to be exact, bent over an old electric cooker shortly after the boys had opened their presents. As they played happily all morning, blissfully unaware that dinner was in danger of being a non-event, their mum and dad made a series of excursions to our place of work and by normal dinner time, everything was , well, normal and dinner was on the table as the guests arrived.

I was reading recently about how the disciples became so afraid the night the storm broke around them while out on the sea of Galilee. Many of them were seasoned fishermen and, I'm sure, accustomed to windy nights at seas, but this was something different, something that made them smell fear. But how Jesus eased their fears when He spoke and calmed the storm. It made me think that even as Christians, we are not immune to the rough patches that life throws at us but to have Jesus there to help us through is such a blessing. Yet, like the disciples, it also teaches me whom He really is for nothing is beyond His control and he's always in the boat with me. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. Mine is in the God who made the wind!