Been in the Storm So Long

By David Telfort  AoP' 12

"Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish," (Jonah 2:1, NRSV)

This year's National Festival of Young Preachers was as exciting as any. It was filled with old friends reconnecting, new preachers coming to the pulpits, and electrifying preaching and poetry that stirred our souls. The Questions of the Soul that were asked ranged everywhere from how to find the Light of Christ in our darkest of moments to where joy resides in everyday life. As the festival drew to a close news of an impending cold weather system known as the "Polar Vortex" began to circulate. Flights got changed, cars got packed up early and the festival officially ended a day earlier than planned.

As everyone scrambled to get their travel arrangements changed I was received the frustrating news that I would be stuck in Indianapolis. After a couple missed opportunities to get out early, a threshold had been crossed and I was officially S-T-U-C-K. I along with a couple fellow preachers got stranded at the hotel and what began feeling like an impromptu respite quickly transformed into anxiousness and hopelessness. 

As Salvador Avila (AoP '14) and I made sandwiches, from supplies graciously provided by AoP staff, we talked about our situation. "What makes waiting so hard, is not the waiting itself. It's more that you don't know when or how you're going to get out that is so frustrating." Salvador commented. "I know I'm going to get home, but when I look outside at the blowing winds, feel the sub-zero degree weather and hear the reports of the state of emergency, my hope begins to fall away."

I felt the same way. As we sat there in the comfortable and posh hotel we wanted for nothing. We were privileged to have a warm bed to sleep in, food and resources available to us as well as family and friends who checked in on us regularly. The waiting was not problem. Being in the storm was difficult because it meant that conceptually we knew that we were going to make it home. The how, because it was unclear, left us feeling defeated. It was not until we were stuck for another full day that I began to realize that I was looking at the situation the wrong way.

In the book of Jonah, the prophet by the same name flees from his assignment to preach to the city of Nineveh. Instead of doing what God has told him to do he flees and heads on a ship headed to a city in another direction, Tarshish. A treacherous storm descends on the sea and the passengers on the ship begin to all pray to their gods wondering why such a cruel fate has befallen them. Jonah knows why the storm has come upon them and he voluntarily is thrown into the sea. A whale swallows Jonah up and he's inside of it for three long days.

One of the things in this story that gets me excited is Jonah's prayer from inside the stomach of the whale. He has three full days in there, it probably wasn't comfortable and didn't smell all that great. In the midst of his discomfort; with nothing to do, nowhere to run and nothing to distract him, he prays. I like Jonah's prayer because all he can do is thank God for preserving his life and tell God how eager he is to get back into the temple and worship. As much as I appreciated what Jonah prays, I was blessed by the fact that he prays at all.

Many times when we're going through a difficult time we're so focused on the how and the when of our deliverance we perhaps never ponder the why. I can't say that the polar vortex descended on the Midwest for one particular reason or another but I can say that those days were among the most relaxing, spiritual and renewing that I had in a long time prior. I was blessed to be in a place where I did not have the demands of family, school and ministry pulling me in more directions than I could handle. I could spend quality time in prayer, devotion and conversation with fellow preachers. I was indeed in the storm for a long time; and along with it came the typical feelings of anxiousness around waiting. But while in the storm I found some things my fast-paced life can't always give me.

The title for this reflection came from the African-American Spiritual of the same name. Its refrain reads:

I been in the storm so long

I been in the storm so long, children

I been in the storm so long

Oh, give me a little time to pray.

The storm is hard to be in. It can be debilitating. It can suck the life out of us at times. It can however, allow us to tap into conversation with God and ourselves that we would otherwise be too busy to engage in. In a snow storm, in Indianapolis, IN I learned that a storm can pull more out of us than we could ever realize.