After the Storm

After the Storm

A sailor who had survived three major storms described each one: 'During the storm you can't think clearly. You only react. Afterward, when the sea is glassy and the air is still, you look back and understand what happened — and you see what held.' She had become a Christian after the third storm, not because of a miracle but because of the contrast: the storm and the calm afterward. 'The calm after the storm,' she said, 'is the most profound silence I have ever experienced. And in that silence I first heard something that might have been God.' She began to look for the stillness after every difficult season as the place where clarity arrived.

The sequence in Mark 4:39 is significant: rebuke, then command, then 'completely calm.' The calm didn't precede the rebuke — it followed it. Jesus spoke into the storm and the storm obeyed. In the aftermath of our storms — illness survived, relationship repaired, crisis resolved, difficulty endured — there is often a specific quality of peace that only comes through the storm. The disciples' response (verse 41) was awe: 'Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!' The storm had introduced them to a dimension of Jesus they would not have encountered in calm waters. Are you in the aftermath of a storm? Look for what the storm introduced you to. Look for the lesson written in the calm.