Trust the Storm's Purpose

Sometimes the most loving thing life can do is take away what you think you cannot live without.

Thank you for listening!

Take this reflection into the silence, and I'll see you next time.

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Transcript

My phone buzzed with the familiar amber alert tone. "Destructive force," it warned. "Seek shelter immediately."

Within hours, Austin's sky erupted in fury. Baseball-sized hail pounded rooftops. Wind whipped sideways with such force that even our covered patio couldn't shield the windows from rain's assault. Bikes toppled. The grill skittered across concrete. Our French drain, built just weeks ago, surrendered to the torrent.

When morning came, I surveyed the wreckage. Branches from our massive pecan tree lay scattered like fallen soldiers. The Chinese tallow had lost one large limb. Everything looked broken.

Destructive force. The phrase echoed as I grabbed my handsaw and began the cleanup. One by one, I sectioned the fallen branches into manageable pieces. But as I worked, something caught my eye.

The final Chinese tallow branch I cut was dark, almost black. Diseased. The wood felt soft and crumbly in my hands. The unmistakable signs of infection. This branch had been dying long before the storm arrived.

I stepped back, suddenly seeing differently. The storm had not destroyed this tree. It had performed surgery.

For months, maybe years, this diseased branch had been stealing energy from healthy growth. The tree couldn't heal itself. It couldn't amputate its own infected limb. It needed an external force powerful enough to remove what was slowly killing it. The storm was nature's scalpel.

What we label "destruction" often serves as nature's way of restoring balance. The wind doesn't rage mindlessly. It prunes. The lightning doesn't strike randomly. It fertilizes with nitrogen. The flood doesn't devastate. It redistributes nutrients across the landscape.

We call it destruction because we see only the moment of change, not the years of preparation or the decades of renewed growth that follow. We witness the surgery but miss the healing.

Your own storms work the same way. The job loss that forces you toward better work. The relationship that ends, freeing you from slow poison. The failure that strips away everything except what truly matters.

Nature doesn't waste energy on resentment when the storm comes. The tree doesn't curse the wind that removes its diseased branch. It simply redirects its life force toward what remains healthy.

Sometimes the most loving thing life can do is take away what you think you cannot live without.