SHE withstands the heatwaves

About three times a year the Bay Area gets hit with a “heatwave”. Now if you live in any other typically hot area like my second home in Dallas. Temperatures of 91 degrees are laughable and considered a cool summer day. But for a place like Oakland that averages in the mid 70s, 91 degrees feel like a punishment.

Due to relatively consistent cool temperatures, most housing in the area is not fitted with A/C units. Most of the year I’m fine. Most of the time I don’t mind. Until those three times a year when when my house becomes an overpriced hotbox. With no relief. Stores or places that you assumed would have A/C are shockingly just as destitute as you.

Now you might think, why don’t you invest in a portable A/C or fan for those days, so that when the heat rises, you won’t be taken for a loop or thrown off so much you can’t even focus or move. Almost incapacitated in your home.

It’s because, as I mentioned, the weather is so consistent. So consistent that the “heatwave” sneaks up on me EVERY year. I rarely check the weather. Why? …when I already know what it is going to be.

When life is going good, pitfalls, hardships, and sudden disappointments feel like sudden heatwaves that leave us with few places to escape to.

Why would God allow the heat to rise when I was comfortable?

When everything was so predictable that I didn’t even have to check the temperature?

I didn’t even have to consult Him or His word.

When framed like this, I had a sudden realization while enjoying the brief respite of my car A/C. I realized how upset or thrown off I can become when the heat rises in areas of my life that I thought were predictable. Everything was going nice until (insert life event).

But isn’t it just that? Life. To see the goodness in the good AND undesirable times in life, we must divorce ourselves of a view that a good life and whole life is void of heatwaves and hardships. The fallacy that the purpose we have in life and may be actively pursuing, exempts us from years of waiting or sudden changes that throw us for a loop. That in those times, they are actually opportunities to seek refuge in God. That in times when we are thrown off, they’re actually proof of God’s consistency all along. And if we know His character does not change. Then we also know that even on the hottest days, He will never leave or forsake us. That He will be there in the fire AND by still waters.

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Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. | James 1:17 |