Life’s Storms
Read: UMH #512
There are times, I am sure, in everyone’s life when certain events strike us, they will stay with us for most of the rest of our lives.
I was thinking about this when an announcement was made on the TV about more of President Kennedy’s pictures at the White House, just before that fatal Dallas trip. It made me think back to that awful day in November. I was putting visitor booklets together, that would describe the hoped for budget moneys for the church in Ironwood. Needless to say, that announcement changed the world – not just Ironwood people.
The second experience that also was world changing was the explosion of the Space Shuttle when the first woman astronaut was killed.
And, of course, we cannot ever forget the 9/11 tragedy that changed the world as we knew it.
The next life changing event in my world was the death of my daughter, Diane, while she was on vacation in Jamaica. Two vehicles tried to ignore the basic law of physics that told us two items (in this case autos) could not occupy the same space at the same identical moment. Certainly a life altering event.
And lastly, last September when Rev. Leineke was felled by a stroke. My first inclination was to call everyone who is, was, or had been a friend. On that occasion, since I always have a song in my head, I said we were singing, “When the Storms of Life are Raging, Stand by Me.” As I think of it, it would have been appropriate for all of the other incidents.
One of those persons contacted was Bishop Woodie White, who was a member of this Annual Conference when we first met. Woodie called me back and said, “I have just written an article about that very song, and I will send you a copy of it,” I did not say NO. Another friend, Rev. Tom Robinson, called to say this song was sung at his father’s funeral, which was happening while Rev. Leineke was being evaluated regarding his stroke.
Bishop White’s article (see tomorrow’s devotion, but not until tomorrow!) appeared in the Methodist Reporter. The title as it appeared in the Reporter is “O Courage, my soul, in the midst of life’s storms.” He draws from experiences when he was a child, and storms would frequently arrive where he was living, and how scary those times were; and how the family sat together to ride out the storm. The point Woodie was making in the article is that storms will come, but storms always go, and the challenge is to figure out how to ride out all of these events / storms.
I found out that the author of that hymn was Charles Tindley – also a UM minister.
Here are the words to that song:
“O Courage, my soul, and let us journey on, for tho the night is dark, it won’t be very long.
Thanks be to God, the morning light appears and the storm is passing over, Hallelujah.”
To quote Bishop White again, “It is good to remember, in the face of life’s storms, they will always pass over. Hallelujah – the challenge is to get through them.”
Lois Leineke
Read: UMH #512
There are times, I am sure, in everyone’s life when certain events strike us, they will stay with us for most of the rest of our lives.
I was thinking about this when an announcement was made on the TV about more of President Kennedy’s pictures at the White House, just before that fatal Dallas trip. It made me think back to that awful day in November. I was putting visitor booklets together, that would describe the hoped for budget moneys for the church in Ironwood. Needless to say, that announcement changed the world – not just Ironwood people.
The second experience that also was world changing was the explosion of the Space Shuttle when the first woman astronaut was killed.
And, of course, we cannot ever forget the 9/11 tragedy that changed the world as we knew it.
The next life changing event in my world was the death of my daughter, Diane, while she was on vacation in Jamaica. Two vehicles tried to ignore the basic law of physics that told us two items (in this case autos) could not occupy the same space at the same identical moment. Certainly a life altering event.
And lastly, last September when Rev. Leineke was felled by a stroke. My first inclination was to call everyone who is, was, or had been a friend. On that occasion, since I always have a song in my head, I said we were singing, “When the Storms of Life are Raging, Stand by Me.” As I think of it, it would have been appropriate for all of the other incidents.
One of those persons contacted was Bishop Woodie White, who was a member of this Annual Conference when we first met. Woodie called me back and said, “I have just written an article about that very song, and I will send you a copy of it,” I did not say NO. Another friend, Rev. Tom Robinson, called to say this song was sung at his father’s funeral, which was happening while Rev. Leineke was being evaluated regarding his stroke.
Bishop White’s article (see tomorrow’s devotion, but not until tomorrow!) appeared in the Methodist Reporter. The title as it appeared in the Reporter is “O Courage, my soul, in the midst of life’s storms.” He draws from experiences when he was a child, and storms would frequently arrive where he was living, and how scary those times were; and how the family sat together to ride out the storm. The point Woodie was making in the article is that storms will come, but storms always go, and the challenge is to figure out how to ride out all of these events / storms.
I found out that the author of that hymn was Charles Tindley – also a UM minister.
Here are the words to that song:
“O Courage, my soul, and let us journey on, for tho the night is dark, it won’t be very long.
Thanks be to God, the morning light appears and the storm is passing over, Hallelujah.”
To quote Bishop White again, “It is good to remember, in the face of life’s storms, they will always pass over. Hallelujah – the challenge is to get through them.”
Lois Leineke
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