It was one of those mornings.  I was awakened by the sound of thunder and flashes of lightning piercing the darkness of the room.  It was 4:30 and I didn’t want to get up.  As I laid there watching the window light up and the booming sounds of thunder, I was taken back to my childhood. 

Like most children, I was afraid of the thunderstorms.  When they began, I would run to be near my dad.  I knew he would protect me and keep me safe through the storms.  He told me that the sound of thunder was God moving furniture around in heaven.  The flashes of lightning were caused by Him turning the lights off and on as he moved from room to room in the mansions of heaven.  It made me feel better to think of thunderstorms that way.  When my children were young, that story became a part of their lives too.  It helped them feel comfortable when the thunderstorms would light up their rooms. 

As the storm increased in noise, I thought of the many storms Americans are facing in today’s world.  Some are searching for jobs after losing theirs of 20 years or more.  Some are searching for jobs as they graduate from college.  Jobs are hard to find.  If they have a home and find a job in another city, it is difficult to relocate because their home values may be upside down.   They feel stuck and hopeless.

I tossed and turned thinking about the blessings some of us still have.  Some still have jobs but are worried that soon they may be laid off.  The worry in America is weighing on people’s minds and we are wondering if we can hold on until another leader takes Obama’s place.

Thunder rattled the house and I heard a large pop.  I got out of bed to make sure all was well in the back yard.  When I got to the sliding glass doors, a bolt of lightning lit up the yard as if God was taking a photo and the flash went off. 

It’s going to be a big storm, I thought.  I couldn’t sleep anymore as I waited for the rain to come.  We need the rain to hold back the fires that have filled our air with smoke.  I sat in the still darkness of the living room watching the storm make a lot of noise and light up the yard.  Then suddenly, it all stopped.  No rain.  Nothing else happened.  Everything became still and the morning light was beginning to poke through the trees.

I wondered what the storm was all about.  Was it a wake up call?  Was it raining somewhere else and all we got was the light show? 

Isn’t that what life is all about?  Some people may be in the middle of the storm with the crashing rain coming down on them.  Some of us may only get a few snippets of the storm.  Some of us hear about it and some of us see it but never experience the real storm that others are.

In a posting yesterday, a struggling single mom is feeling the rain coming down.  She is selling a handwritten note she received from Obama.  She had written him expressing her concerns that she would become homeless in this economy.  He wrote back and told her he was rooting for her and things would get better.  http://beta.news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/struggling-single-mom-sell... Life has not gotten better and this young mother of three is now selling the note so she can make ends meet.  His rooting for her has not changed her circumstances.  The storms of life are still her daily routine.

We also saw Obama at a Jobs Council (?) and when a statement was made about how difficult it was to get permitting for jobs, Obama responded laughingly with the statement “shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”  Laughing while Americans are looking for jobs from a hope-filled stimulus plan paid for by their hard-earned tax dollars – is no laughing matter.  It’s serious out here in America and our leader is laughing about our problems as the thundering rain continues to fall on those who are looking for work.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RNDNlhYl58

My heart hurts for these people and some of them are my friends.  They are hard-working citizens who have never needed a hand out in their lives.  They have always managed to take care of themselves.  The thunderstorms they are in, with the rain pouring down, is not getting any better and it is not going away.  They wake up daily to the thunder, lightning and the flood of despair while our leader plays golf, eats lobster and caviar and sends notes that he’s rooting for us.

I heard a light rain begin as I poured my first cup of coffee.  I was glad to hear the rain coming down for the grass and the flowers blooming in the butterfly garden.  I asked God to stop the rain in the lives of my friends and to send them a ray of sunshine and a big beautiful rainbow painted by the angels in heaven.  They need a sign that all will be better soon. 

We are seventeen months away from escorting Mr. Obama from the White House.  We hope the new President will not laugh at our problems and has a plan to fix this economy.  People are hurting and they need a President who understands their problems and feels their pain through the rain.

Please pray for my friends who are out of work, out of money and out of hope.  If we all jointly send a prayer to God for these precious people, He can work a miracle for them.  I know He can because he can start and stop the rain with a snap of His fingers.