On windstorms and whispers

We had a windstorm in the Niagara region this week.  What an amazing show of God's power!  I don't mean to diminish the damage that happened, but when I drove into work that day, I had was given such a sense of awe over how great and mighty a God we serve.

Thursdays are the day I spend at the church office while the kids go to my sister's place.  My drive in requires me to cross the Burlington Skyway bridge, something I generally dislike given my odd fear of bridges over water.  I knew traffic was going to be stupid because of the wind, and my expectations were confirmed when the sign over the QEW read, "Severe winds on Skyway.  Reduce speed."  It's always bad when they upgrade it from "high winds" to "severe winds". 

It got even worse as I was driving along, and I could see in the distance that there wasn't even any traffic going over the bridge at all.  I knew right away that they had actually gone and closed the bridge due to the wind.  Luckily, they had just closed it, so the traffic wasn't too horrible yet to go around on Eastport Drive.  I don't really know why, but I was in a good enough mood that morning that the bad traffic and forced detour didn't actually bother me that much.

It turned out to be a way cooler way to drive in to work that day than taking the bridge.

Obviously, we were traveling at rather slow speeds, but this just gave me a chance to look around at the bay and the lake on both sides of me.  I could watch what the wind was doing to the water, and it was incredible.  Have you ever seen waves blown backwards?  It's a sight to see, let me tell you.  The lake had spots of mist rising out of it, kind of like what you would see sometimes when it's early in the morning and the water is warmer than the air around it.  When the sun managed to find a few moments to shine through the clouds, it turned the water an odd green/blue/gray colour that I've never seen on Lake Ontario before.

To say the water on the bay side was choppy would be an understatement.  Turbulent might be a better way to put it.  Some might even call it "tempestuous."  All I know is there was water in the air, and I couldn't tell if the spray hitting my car was actually rain or the bay being blown out of it's cradle in the earth.

Then God showed up. 

The sun broke through the clouds again long enough to light up the mist, and a glorious rainbow filled the sky from one side of the bay to the other, a massive arc of colour over the city.  And God reminded me of His promise to Noah that He would never destroy the earth again with a flood...(although I'm not too sure about His position on windstorms...)  I think every hair on my body stood on end at the reminder of His majesty.

And in the quiet of my soul, I heard a whisper, "I am God.  And I am here."