Yesterday in church I talked about what things we would be willing to let go of completely to allow God to advance His Kingdom. During the time of prayer following the message I prayed for God to reveal to everyone what was that one thing that they still held onto. For me, God revealed a very clear picture. It was a picture of me holding onto our double stroller that can also hook up to our bike. I saw God taking my fingers off of the grip one at a time. I will admit, when I saw this picture I was terrified and somewhat relieved. I thought I had already given God my kids, but apparently He didn't think so. I consented and told God and everyone that was listening that I would give Him my kids.
Fast forward to last night. We were doing our typical family routine of walking the boardwalk in Grand Haven. We simply love doing this. We put the two younger kids in the same jogging stroller that God had shown me and we allow our two older kids to walk. Most of the time Kari wants to get out and walk too but we usually make her ride in the stroller until we get to the BIG rocks to climb on. It is my favorite thing to do as a family. We always end up at the beach and the kids have fun playing in God's big pool, Lake Michigan, until we need to head back to the car. There is usually a stop at one of the nice ice cream parlors on the way back to encourage them to move a little quicker. There is almost a friend of the kids with us too. If you are counting while reading this, that means typically 5 kids and two adults. Last night, we had 6 kids, and thankfully a college friend of mine was in town and wanted to do the "Taylor Walk" too. So we started our walk. Before leaving home I noticed that there was a chance for rain around 7, but until then it was supposed to be nice. As we got closer and closer to the Lake front the clouds got darker and darker. The kids had endured the walk so we needed to let them have a little fun in the lake.
After the kids had been in the water for maybe 5 minutes the State Park security came down on the beach telling everyone that a fast moving storm was quickly approaching and everyone needed to leave immediately. Usually statements like this don't send me into urgent stage, but the look on the security officials and the look of the clouds sent me running to get the kids all together and heading for safety. We had parked nearly a mile away and I knew we needed to hurry. Anyone that has pushed a stroller in the beach knows how much fun that is but I was pushing with all my might to get the kids up the hill as fast as possible. As I started moving I noticed everyone else was moving quicker, which made me want to go faster too. And so I did. I tried to look behind to see if Tricia and Doug and the kids were on their way, but every time I turned around the sand that was being blown at sustainable winds of over 46 miles per hour would simply blind me. Thankfully the jogging stroller has a cover which kept the babies dry, but this acted like a sail or a kite pulling me along the boardwalk now faster than my feet could move. I would try and place my heels solidly on the ground at certain times to try and guide our direction more than to slow us down. Now I'm a big man and to have this type of wind literally pulling me, you may begin to understand the force with which I was being dragged. But I had to hold on tight to my babies. I was praying the whole time for Tricia and Doug and the 4 other kids. I was hoping that at some point the clouds would simply part and the rains would stop and the sun would begin to shine again. This never happened.
What did happen was the Coast Guard Post along the boardwalk was open and allowed people like myself to enter in for safety. It was such an incredible sense of relief to know that the babies and I were safe, but I continued to walk outside hoping to see Tricia and the kids. The storm was a fast moving storm but it felt like hours until I saw my kids and Tricia walking up the boardwalk. When they saw me they came running to tell me about Annah's bravery in helping Gabe find his lost flip flop. Or Gabe's bravery in not crying when his face hurt so bad. They had been allowed to enter into one of the ice cream stands on the boardwalk and were all safe.
As we returned home I stopped and picked up pizza at Pizza Hut. Apparently we got one of the last pizzas before they ran out of crust. There were few, if any lights on in town and roads blocked off all over because of fallen tree limbs. In fact right near the church limbs fell and crushed and killed a man in his car with his wife and baby both safe. Through this whole storm I was reminded of our fragility. I was reminded how quickly things can go from peace to a storm but then back to peace again. As Tricia and I laid in the dark as our kids were going to sleep, I was also reminded of the vision that God had shown me holding onto my kids in the same stroller that I had just been holding onto. I really "thought" I had let them go and trusted God to care for them. I "thought" but I hadn't really. I had "said" all of the right things, but as the wind was pulling my babies and me I realized that I still trusted Doppler radar more than God. I trusted my ability to protect my kids more than God. I trusted so many things...more than God. It literally took a massive storm like we had yesterday, killing one person, wrecking havoc on thousands of others, to realize my need to completely let go and trust God for everything.
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