The Guide In The Storm

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I was in a cocoon of sleep yet starting to rouse for the day when my Golden Retriever, Molly, started pacing in our motel room.

My husband, Steve, and I were spending the night in Gallup, N.M., on the way to visit our daughter, Katie, and her family in Phoenix. We dressed quickly to take our two dogs outside, and when I opened the exterior door of the motel I was hit with a cruel blast of wind, cold and rain.

Since we were awake, we decided to pack up our car and begin the last leg of our trip. It was pitch black when we pulled out of the parking lot and headed west on Interstate 40.

We realized pretty quickly that we were heading into a serious storm.

The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was coming at us in horizontal lines. It was like being in the middle of an arcade game. Soon we had no visibility at all, except for the straight white line edging the right lane of the highway. There were times when we couldn't see the center line, and we couldn't see much ahead in the horizon. I kept watching that white line, and once in a while I would tell Steve, "Head the car a foot or so over to the left," not knowing the size of the drop on my side of the road.

I started praying that God would send us a guide, and He did in the form of truck drivers. We would catch up to them, and follow taillights for a while. My heart sank each time a truck exited the highway.

We drove and drove and drove, and New Mexico turned into Arizona, with no sign of a sunrise behind us.

It was dark, with rain turning to sleet and snow, when I had my “ah hah” moment. I realized as we were driving along and as I was praying for a human guide to lead us through the storm that God our Father is our Divine Guide, and He is always with us.

Isn't that just the way it is? Some days we are in total darkness, we can't see the road in front of us, and we beg for human help – when, in fact, our Divine Father is always there waiting to guide us.

That morning, when it seemed that the darkness would never end, the skies slowly turned from black to slate and then to pewter. The rain and snow and sleet ended, and soon we were through the worst of a difficult storm.

We began to see patches of blue sky peaking through the clouds, and soon there was a panorama of blue on three sides of our car.

We stopped in a McDonald's for some coffee and oatmeal, and that's when we were able to take some deep breaths and laugh. I apologized for digging my fingernails into the armrest of Steve's car, and we rejoiced at getting through a really bad storm.

We both agreed that it had been harrowing.

As we headed south to Phoenix, the sky was a bright blue, the landscape was dotted with mesas, and the sun glistened on the golden grasses along the side of the road.

Things were, mercifully, back to normal.

We were both so relieved and thankful to be out of the storm. And I held close in my heart the awareness that the Divine Guide is always better than human ones.