The Tide-Turning Power of Hopeعينة

As a child, I loved the tropical storms that hit the East Coast of Australia. As I lay in my room, I was captivated by the pounding rain and blue flashes of lightning I saw through the window. I was excited to feel my heart jump as loud claps of thunder echoed through the house. While it was fun at the time, I’ve grown up seeing the devastation that storms can bring. Sometimes, the vicious wind of a storm can be so extreme that it blows roofs off houses, overturns cars, and even strips the bark off of trees! Floods and storms don’t just occur in nature. They happen in our lives. Like a natural storm, personal storms can arrive quite unexpectedly. They don’t make appointments. Like Job, every one of us has experienced situations over which we have no personal control, situations we did not expect and could not prevent. Storms should not define our lives, however. Rather, how we respond to storms should be the touchstone. Reinvention, ingenuity, learning, growth. Some of your most game-changing lessons will come out of storms. They will shape your character, they will grow your empathy and they will unlock parts of your inner strength that you didn’t know existed. There is an audio attachment for this devotional. You can [ download the audio ](https://plan-audio-cdn.youversionapi.com/uploads/supplemental-audio/ac1b7f14-7edf-4e28-9398-54fdafdfca82.mp3) if you wish.