Internal Weather
Navigating the blinding, sudden thunder of our own vulnerabilities.
It has been raining a lot over the last few days, so this has slowed my time outside under clear skies to see the stars, but it has got me thinking as the rain saturates the ground around me.
There is a distinct difference between heavy, persistent rain and a sudden flash of lightning. The rain can be hidden from. I can pull a coat tightly over my shoulders, duck into a doorway, or simply let the gray drizzle blur the world until everything looks as damp and shadowed as I feel. My guilt is often like that rain, a slow, heavy downpour that manual labor or time might eventually wash away (which is a lie, because that’s not how it works, but I can easily be tricked into thinking it can be). But shame? Shame is the lightning, and it can both be blinding and sting in ways that are unexpected and sudden. It sucks.
Shame never warns me before it strikes. I can be moving through an ordinary day, navigating a normal conversation, when a sudden memory or a sharp realization flashes across my mind. I can be riding my bike and run into someone I know from a previous time in my life, and it can all come flooding back in a millisecond; the sky cracks open, and I am struck. It is a blinding, violent electricity that doesn’t just illuminate the room; it strips away every layer of defense I have spent months/years building. It flashes directly into the dark corners of who I am, exposing the flaws and the failures of my very core.
When that internal bolt hits, it leaves me completely paralyzed. For a single, agonizing moment, the light is so white and absolute that I feel entirely naked to the world. It’s the terrifying certainty that everyone else can see the exact fracture line where the bolt meets my skin. I stand there, scorched, waiting for the inevitable thunder, the internal roar of self-judgment that follows the shock wave.
The storm doesn’t ask permission to pull the shadows into the light. It demands that I look at what I have spent a lifetime trying to hide.
I often hear people talk about weathering the storm as if it’s a test of endurance. But when the storm lives inside my own chest, there is no shelter to run to. I am both the landscape being struck and the turbulent sky delivering the blow.
Lately, I am trying to learn how to breathe in the aftermath of the flash. To sit in the dark after the blinding light recedes, listening to the rain taper off, waiting for the smoke to clear so I can see what is left standing. Because even after the fiercest lightning strikes, the ground eventually cools. The sky, eventually, clears.
Leaning deeper into my faith is really the only answer, which means building strong relationships with others who are fully grounded (pun intended). It means standing next to a strong support system, a lightning rod of sorts. Is every day perfect? No, do I handle these moments perfectly? No. Will I give up and stay down when I am struck to the ground? No.
"Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed." -Psalm 107:28–29
Until next time, keep looking up. (Just not during a lightning storm).
-g
Reading this feels like finding shelter in the rain. Thank you for your honesty and hope—this resonated deeply.