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The Blizzard of 2025, I Survived!

Alane Stanton

The Blizzard of 2025 along the Gulf Coast was something I never thought I would see. Having lived here for nearly 7 years, I've experienced mild winters, hot summers, a direct hit by Hurricane Sally, and now a generational snowstorm. Snowfall amounts and temps broke records that have stood for 130 years. My own yard was covered with nearly 9" of beautiful whiteness, which I photographed during quite blustery winds reminiscent of the waning hurricane. But I survived!


How often do we we use the phrase, "I survived!"? It is usually expressed in a flippant manner with little thought. In light of the snowstorm, t-shirts and sweatshirts are now being made and sold with one version or another of "I Survived the Blizzard of 2025!"


This event has me wondering ... are we meant to merely survive the things that come our way? Be it a weather event, a family crisis, a financial setback, a natural disaster, or other calamity or tragedy, are we meant to just go through the motions, deal with it, move on?


What about when life is good? The weather is perfect, family is living in peaceful bliss, a new job was acquired with double the pay, and everything is coming up roses. (Yeah right, but a woman can dream!) So, what then? Are we still just going through the expected motions, dealing with the bliss, resting in our happiness?


If you've read any of my other posts, you know I've experienced a few of the first situations, but also some of the latter. When looking back on my life, I feel I was just surviving during the happy times. When everything was good, I took it for granted. I rested in the happiness.


During the heartbreak of divorce, the tragedy of losing my son, and the loss of my dad, I felt I was going through the motions, putting on the plastic face of, "I'm fine," and also feeling as if I could not move. But the crazy thing is, each one of those events presented me with an opportunity. Yes, I grieved all that was lost ... my marriage, my family unit, my son's death, and then my daddy's.


BUT GOD ... in His blessed mercy and strength, I moved. Not only did I move forward, but I moved forward on an educational journey. I moved to a new state, new church, new friendships. I moved to a new place of peace which I had not felt in a while. The moving did not mean forgetting, but the moving was God reminding me, we are made for more than just surviving.


I will always grieve the loss of my son. My heart breaks on a continual basis, and I will forever mourn not having my sweet boy here. But somehow, God mends the brokenness. Somehow, God provides the strength for me to place one foot in front of the other when experiencing immobilizing grief. Somehow, God continues to bring joy into my life.


WITH GOD ... Somehow, I am THRIVING, not just surviving! There is peace in the snowstorm. There is peace in the chaos of life. There is peace in the grief. There is peace.


I am convinced that God wants more for us than to merely survive. He loves us. He wants the best for us. He provides all that we need to live a life in which we thrive! Let's move from just surviving to thriving. Who's with me?!?!


________________________


"But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever." (Psalm 52:8)


"For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

(Philippians 2:13)


"That they [we] should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for IN HIM we LIVE and MOVE and have our being ...for we are indeed his offspring." (Acts 17:27-28)


Like Paul, we can get up, keep moving, PRESS ON and THRIVE!


"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I PRESS ON to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers (and sisters), I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I PRESS ON toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12-14)




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