Forever Changed by the Flood

For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.  They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.  Every living thing that moved on land perishedbirds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.

Genesis 5:17-22(NIV) 

 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

Genesis 9:11 (NIV)

They pass quietly, anniversaries of sorts; the days the water level rose. The days when health diagnoses threatened to change our lives forever; our own Great Floods. That time last year, two years or ten years ago, when everything on dry land which had the breath of life in it died. I would not trade my experiences of the flood, though I would never have chosen them.

I Would Never have been Brave Enough; That is the way of God.

Faith grows through adversity, not joyous times. We discover the depths of our faith not when things are easy, but when things seem irrevocably broken, and prayer might NOT be the fix. Prayer changes us rather than our circumstances, and these floods and those prayers throughout the years have changed me. We survive. I have yet survived, and thrived, but only because God favored us so. God carried us through our floods as certainly as the Ark bore Noah. 

God Carried Our Feet to Solid Ground.

By Faith, we were restored. We were made not whole but different; fortified by Grace. And with each survival, we move to a different place. We are fierce. We are weary but stronger for the battles we came through, and while I would never have undertaken these fights had I any choice, I am grateful, retrospectively. Grateful that each testing brought us to our knees. Grateful that we knew how and to Whom to pray, and that we were known. Grateful retrospectively, because in the time of testing, there is only the wind and the rains.

They will pass quietly, these anniversaries of sorts. I can fall into the arms of My Beloved, and gaze into the faces of those I love, assured, even as I see rainbows in my dreams.  Assured that though storms will come, I will never face them alone. Assured that there will be, in the words of Stormie Omartian,

“Just Enough Light for the Step I’m On.”

And because God was always with us, I will not fear the rising tides. The waters may rise, but never will I be destroyed by the flood.

Chelle Wilson
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