Freedom from Fear in the Storms of Life
Barbara Johnson

He calms the storm, so that its waves are still.
—Psalm 107:29 NKJV

Before Hurricane Rita hit the Gulf Coast in September 2005, Veronica Alexander and her husband, Karl, along with their seventeen-year-old son, Kassel, had to make a hard decision whether to leave their home in Louisiana.

“There was a mandatory evacuation order,” said Veronica, who told her story to one of my friends at a Women of Faith conference last year. “But we couldn’t just jump in the car and go.” Veronica’s sister and brother-in-law, who lived about a half hour’s drive south, had severe health problems and were not able to evacuate on their own. So Veronica and Karl hurried to pick them up. “But by the time we got them back to our home, the traffic was bumper to bumper on the road leading away from our place. It was too late to go any farther,” she said. “We knew if we left we would be caught in the storm. Besides that, my husband refused to leave, and I wasn’t going to leave without Him.”

So they made what preparations they could before the hurricane swept over their part of Louisiana. “We really didn’t have time to do much. My husband took me aside and said, ‘We’re probably going to lose everything,’” said Veronica. “I’ve always teased him of being one who sees the glass half empty while I see it half full. I told him I believed God was going to keep us safe.”

As the rain began and the winds picked up, Veronica walked through the rooms of her home. “I prayed, and I said that I was taking authority over this storm in the name of Jesus. I prayed protection over our home and our family and our possessions, and then I felt completely at peace.”

Her husband couldn’t help but fret, however. He insisted that he had to do something to protect their home. “So he went outside and tied the grandkids’ trampoline to a tree, even though I’d said he should just leave it,” Veronica said.

That night, the family members sat inside the sixty-five-year-old, thousand-square-foot home, alternately talking about the goodness of God and watching the televised storm reports. The power finally failed about two in the morning, along with the water and phone—and all were out for two weeks.

Looking through the windows, they could see the ferocity of the storm. Meteorologists say the most destructive winds of a hurricane occur along the east wall, and that’s the part of the eye that walloped their area. Then, as if the hurricane itself wasn’t enough, the storm spun off several tornadoes that swirled around them as well. Outside, the world was turned upside down, and the noise was deafening. Yet inside their wood-frame home, which Veronica and Karl had renovated with eleven-inch-thick walls, there was quiet peace.

“We prayed and talked and laughed and cut up,” Veronica said. “We felt completely free from fear—none of us felt any fear at all.” In fact, they felt such peace they all eventually went to bed and slept soundly as the storm blew through.

The image of Veronica, Karl, and their loved ones sleeping peacefully in their beds brings to mind this fact from John 8:36: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (NIV). Who else could have provided freedom from fear that night as a monster storm passed over their home? No one but the Son of God.

As if to prove just how powerful the storm had been, early the next morning when the family members awoke, they found destruction all around them. “We had to use chain saws to clear the trees out of the road leading to our home,” Veronica said. “Many homes were totally destroyed—just gone. Our neighbor’s brick home was heavily damaged, and the roof was blown off his barn as well. There are several metal structures in our area, and many of them were demolished. Sheets of tin were strewn everywhere.”

But like an island in the middle of ocean, Karl and Veronica’s home remained intact and untouched.

Oh, wait. There was one thing that was destroyed: the trampoline Karl had insisted on tying to the tree. “That was the only tree in our yard that blew down,” Veronica said with a laugh, “and it landed on top of the trampoline. We stood on the porch and watched it happen. My husband just hung his head, and I stood there, laughing.”

Now, Veronica doesn’t recommend defying official orders and staying put when the authorities tell you to leave. But when you find yourself trapped in a storm with no way out—whatever kind of storm it is—she can tell you how to feel freedom from the fear that, by all accounts, should be part of the experience! “We prayed, and we asked God’s protection,” Veronica said. “We knew that whatever came, we could handle it because of our faith in him.”

The faith of Veronica and her loved ones kept them going through the storm and its aftermath, when the September heat forced them out of their home and into tents as they waited for a generator—and then on the grueling, 140-mile round trip they had to make repeatedly to get fuel for the generator when it did arrive.

Veronica and her husband know their faith won’t keep them out of harm’s way, but they’re confident it will free them from fear whenever harm confronts them.

A different storm and a different outcome confronted Kathleen Spicer and her husband, Robert, in 2004 when Hurricane Jeanne roared through Central Florida. They, too, slept soundly that night, “knowing our lives were in God’s hands,” as Kathleen said. The storm wasn’t predicted to pass over the town where they lived, so although there was lots of wind and thunder, they went to bed thinking they were just hearing a thunderstorm rumble through.

It seems funny now to hear how Kathleen discovered the storm had been worse than they thought. “I got up the next morning and went to make coffee like I always do,” she said. “As I came into the kitchen, I noticed there was water standing on the counter—and then I took another step and realized the kitchen floor was wet.”

Puzzled, she looked out the window and was shocked to see that a forty-foot-tall oak tree had blown down in their yard, and even more shocking, “the roof over our back porch was lying in our neighbor’s driveway,” she said.

Imagine having such peace, such freedom from fear, that you slept soundly while a hurricane ripped the roof off your home! Surely that must be the same peaceful freedom from concern claimed by the apostle Paul, who, after enduring a variety of life storms, wrote, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Philippians 4:12b NIV). That’s a pretty strong statement, given the situations Paul endured. He was falsely accused, viciously denounced, and physically attacked before being arrested, chained, beaten, flogged, shipwrecked, and jailed for years at a time. I’ll bet Paul would be one who could put his life in God’s hands and sleep through a hurricane too!

What’s keeping you awake at night? What’s stealing your joy and keeping you bound by fear? Maybe you need to set your mind free from those chains that bind you to worry and torment. The prophet Isaiah praised God for keeping “in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on you” (26:3 NLT). I want to be one of those who snore through the night in “perfect peace”!

Just think what we can accomplish when we’re freed from fear and worry. One of my friends said she gained a new understanding of how we live out this kind of fear-free Christian life when she overheard her kids explaining a video game. "You don’t have to worry about risking your life to face the dragon or jump the chasm," her kids said, "because if you play the game right, you’ve got another life to step into and continue the battle."

When the doctor told me that tests revealed a brain tumor that was probably malignant, he predicted, “These next twenty four hours, as you adjust to this news, will be the hardest twenty-four hours you’ve ever lived.”

I looked at him and smiled. Doctor, I thought, you obviously know nothing about my life!

At that point, God had already helped me endure enough frightening episodes to prove to me his love and support are steadfast. I’d endured having my husband Bill injured so severely in a car crash that doctors predicted he’d be in a vegetative state the rest of his life, then the death of two sons, the estrangement of another son after we argued about his homosexuality, and finally, my own diagnosis of diabetes.  And after all that, the doctor thought I’d lose sleep over a brain tumor? Not likely!

God had held my hand as I’d walked through lots of fires before that one. I knew this new furnace experience probably wouldn’t be easy, and it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant. But I also knew that no matter what happened, I had another life waiting for me to step into. I knew the One who had created me would be with me every step of the way.

And that night, like those women who slept through the hurricanes, I closed my eyes and enjoyed a good night’s sleep, free from fear.

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Excerpted with permission from Amazing Freedom: Devotions to Free Your Spirit and Fill Your Heart, © 2006 Women of Faith. Published by W Publishing Group, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All Rights Reserved.