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Peace in the Storm… literally and COVID-19

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written by Tatum Grigsby | July 24, 2020

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If there is one thing I know it is that God is radically faithful. So faithful that it makes me weep when I reflect on what God has protected me from and walked me through. He knows us intimately and still chooses to be close to us. He is so faithful. 

I’ve seen it over and over in my life, in the mundane and dramatic moments. I feel like most people who are believers have those moments where we knew God’s hands were on us. Like the moments that shaped our testimony where we knew without a shadow of a doubt, God saved us.

But even when we know the truth. And we know God’s hand is in our lives… sometimes in the midst of storms or rougher seasons, it’s hard to see God’s hand working. It is hard to fully trust when everything around us is falling apart. There are some situations where it seems almost impossible for us to believe God is actually there, even though we know He is faithful today, yesterday, and forevermore. It tells us that in the Bible. 

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“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” – Hebrews 13:8

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I feel like this truth is what shaped my life. It started when I was a child and it took me a while to realize, but God literally saved my family and me from an actual hurricane. Yes, one of the most historic hurricanes in the history of the United States affected my family when I was eight years old and my life has not been the same ever since. 

In 2005, my family was living in New Orleans, Louisiana. 2005 is also the year Hurricane Katrina changed Louisiana forever. The hurricane affected over 10 million people; some lost their lives, homes, family members, and even their jobs. Fifteen years later, there are still buildings and businesses vacant because of that storm… 

Isn’t that wild how we can still feel the repercussions of the past, good or bad, even 15 years later?

My family was homeless, jobless, but I can tell you we were not faithless.

A few weeks after the hurricane my mother was looking online for anyone that was willing to help out Katrina refugees and she stumbled upon a church located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa, Oklahoma? No one has even been there. No one knows anyone there. But… my mom reached out. At the time I had no idea what was going on, I just knew a storm came and it flipped my whole world upside down. I was at my grandma’s watching the news a lot and then the next moment I was stuffed into a car with a long drive ahead of me. I had no idea why we were leaving and where we were going, and I for sure didn’t know that that 10 hour drive would not be the last time I drove to Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

So, there we were. Homeless, jobless, but not faithless in the state of Oklahoma.

The church we joined felt led to give their finances, time, and resources to my family and me, and we ended up living in the city of Tulsa for close to three years. My parents were blessed with the opportunity to go to Bible school for free due to their status with the hurricane. They soon would become missionaries to Africa and local pastors back in Louisiana. And get this, none of this would have happened without the hurricane.

Back to me. 

At this time, I had no idea what was going on. I was only eight and all I wanted to be was an artist. All I cared about was getting art lessons to the point that I was so unaware of what was going on around me. Looking back now, I can see that being God’s hand protecting me and saving me from the chaos surrounding me. Without any conscious awareness, the Lord was protecting me with His peace every day I was in Tulsa. 

Does that ever happen to you? Do you ever overlook the hand of God working in your life and not stop to recognize it and give Him praise? I feel like that was what happened to me when I was in Tulsa. Without my understanding, His peace was protecting and shielding me from everything going on around me. God truly is my comforter. 

Fast forward a few years, and my family is back in Louisiana. My parents are missionaries to Africa, I am living in the U.S. playing soccer and conquering high school. Life is moving and filled with school dances, friend fights, sibling quarrels and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  It’s that time during your senior year when it is time to make a decision where you want to go to college. I played competitive soccer for most of my life. I had a very complicated relationship with it, but I knew that I needed to play college soccer (that’s a different story).

I need you to know that I had no intention to move back to Tulsa. None. I didn’t even know that Oral Roberts University existed here. I went there once on a field trip in the 3rd grade, but I didn’t even remember the name. I was looking at schools out of state and a few hours away from home. I did not feel any true excitement about where I wanted to go or any true sense of direction other than soccer. One day my dad said to me “Why don’t you look into the school with the praying hands?” (ORU) We did not even remember the name!! But my spirit remembered the peace. Instantly, I made up my mind. I was going to go to the school with the praying hands. 

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“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28

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And the next four years would change me in every single way. 

I met my husband.

I played college soccer for four years. 

I found a passion for Jesus and people.

I changed my major to social work. 

God literally changed my personality. I do not know how to describe it but He did. 

And NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED UNLESS A HURRICANE DESTROYED MY LIFE. 

The sovereign way God walks us through life is a concept I do not know nor will I ever begin to fully grasp. But remembering the times of His faithfulness gets me through each and every season. 

I know that God loved me when I was 8 and I know that He loves me now. If He took care of me then, when I was only focusing on art classes, I know He will take care of me now when He is my focus. 

So, here I am now. 2020 has felt like another wave of hurricanes. This was the year I finally let myself dream. I was going to enjoy my college graduation, wedding, and my dream job. All things that the Lord had led me to. I am a very practical thinker and dreaming is a very hard thing for me to do, but I felt God leading me to dream again. I daydreamed about the lives I would be able to impact at my dream job. The relief and joy I would get to close my collegiate career with my teammates. The feeling of accomplishment walking across the stage with my cap and gown on. AND to top it all off, the bliss of marrying the man of my dreams surrounded by all of my family and friends.

Then 2020 hit me, like I know it hit most of us.

My dreams went out the window, along with my heart and my head. Nothing was making sense. I could see my aspirations flying past me. I could feel anger setting in for days at a time. I felt forgotten. I felt unloved. 2020 felt like a personal attack on me. Literally. From Covid-19 to the race riots, it felt like everything was out to get me.

It took me a while to open my Bible. If you would have asked me, I would have said I was fine, but I was wrestling. Wrestling with the idea of a faithful God and what it means to trust Him when He is the one who made you finally safe enough to dream and He is the one who could have protected you from the hurricanes. 

But then one day it hit me, and the Lord reminded me of a few things. 

I remembered the hurricane that destroyed my life in 2005 and uprooted my whole family to Tulsa and how God used that hurricane to build me from the ground up.

I remembered when I had no direction for where to go to college God sent me back to the place where I first felt His peace. 

I remembered how putting my trust in God gave Him access to parts of me I didn’t know needed to be pruned and readjusted. 

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“The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.” – Psalm 28:7

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I think this story applies to all of us right now. 2020 might have wrecked us. There may be things going on in our lives that seem impossible to have God’s handiwork in, but He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. So if He loved you then… He loves you now. If His peace protected you in your last stormy season… then His peace surrounds you now, so much so that you cannot even understand it. 

I do not know what God is doing, or how my life will be changed, but I do know that at one point in my life a hurricane destroyed everything and it was the biggest blessing I could have ever received from God. 

Food for thought:

Has there been a time that you can think back to when God was faithful even though you were unaware of it?

Where do you see God’s faithfulness play out in your life today?

What is going on in your life, or what parts of yourself are hard to trust God with? Your dreams, your heart, your mistakes? 

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