Desert Song

Chapter 3

The Plague of Ike

It was hurricane season, and the city of Houston was prepping for the possibility of storms. Employees all over the Greater Houston area were sent home from work to prepare for Hurricane Ike, a doozy of a storm that was expected to make landfall on Galveston Island on September 13, 2008. Brandon and I came home to hunker down, a term I view as comical since it’s used by Houstonians in any type of weather threat. The slightest chance of sleet: “Hunker down, Houston!” Picture the entire population of Houston swarming Kroger and H.E.B to buy every last bottle of water, candle, flashlight, gallon of milk, and loaf of bread. That’s hunkering down, Houston-style.

Brandon’s parents came to stay with us for the night since their home was more in the storm’s direct path than ours. We were home, our house was attended to, and all there was left to do was sit around and wait.

Day turned to night, and we soon realized that the predictions of fierce wind and rain were right on. I decided to go sleep in our master bedroom, but after an hour, Brandon and his dad made me come join them in the living room where I would be most protected from shattered glass. I was initially annoyed. You are waking me up from my sweet slumber, asking me to follow you to a safer shelter? Okay, fine. I will, but I won’t do it happily. I couldn’t see it then, but now I recognize the foreshadowing. This is exactly what God was nudging me to do.

Wake up!

You are in danger!

I have a better way!

A safer option!

Give up your will, your attitude, your desires, and follow me to safety!

Quick! Before it is too late!

The four of us, along with my in-laws’ cocker spaniel, gathered in our living room, listening to the radio for storm updates. The night crept slowly, hour by hour by hour. It felt like the longest night of my life. As we sat listening to the storm rage outside, my own storm continued to rage on the inside.

According to weather.gov, “Over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Ike grew in size and intensified to a Category Two hurricane with maximum winds of 100 mph by that evening. Ike continued to move northwest toward the Texas coast as the hurricane crossed the central and northwest Gulf of Mexico. Although Ike’s intensity remained in the Category Two range, the cyclone continued to grow and became a very large hurricane. The diameter of tropical storm force winds covered a total of 425 miles from the northwest to southeast as Ike approached the upper Texas coast on Friday, September 12. Ike made landfall at 2:10 a.m. CDT Saturday, September 13, near Galveston, Texas. Ike was a Category Two hurricane at landfall with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph” (2016).

Wind raged outside my door at 110 mph, and all I could think about was what I was going to eat the next day.

We made it through the night with no shattered windows. No one slept but an hour or two, but on the inside, we were safe and protected and seemingly peaceful. Yet, that next morning when we opened the front door for the first time, the truth was revealed. Trees down. Fences broken. Yards in disarray. Homes dismantled. War had been waged, and it would soon be time to rebuild.

Not only had the truth been revealed about the state of our property, it would soon be revealed about the state of my heart. While Brandon and his parents were outside surveying the land and walking the streets and talking to gathered neighbors, I was surveying the number on the scale.

We had just been through a hurricane, and all I wanted to do was rip my clothes off and weigh myself.

I closed myself in our master bathroom, stripped off my pajamas, and stepped on the scale, just like I had done every morning for the last goodness-who-knows how many mornings. And for the first time ever in my quest to thinness, the number flashing under my feet sent shivers down my spine.

Eighty-nine pounds.

I stood there in disbelief. I didn’t know what to do. This was the lowest number I had ever seen, and I was scared. Tears welled in my eyes. What am I doing? Am I really in control? What if I can’t stop? What is happening to me? I was terrified of the reality of these answers. Panic entered my body, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Sitting on the cold, tile floor, I wept. I was fearful for my life and the possibility of death. As the day pressed on, my sadness turned to anger. I knew something in me needed to change lest I die, but I did not want to change. Nothing in me wanted to change. I still desired thinness. Facing my struggle implied that I needed transformation, and not one part of me wanted to transform. Control was something I was not ready to hand over. God had used a natural disaster to wake me from my slumber, but I was not ready to fully wake. So what in the world was I to do?

“During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord, as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go!’ … The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. ‘For otherwise,’ they said ‘we will all die!’” (Exodus 12:31–33).

For otherwise, we will all die.

Death was now a risk. Pharaoh had hit his breaking point. He realized the risk of staying stuck was greater than the risk of change, of letting go.

We read through these scriptures and deem him an idiot, but honestly, I empathize with this man. Because I’ve been in that very spot. I too have been glued in that space where letting go looked really, really scary, and I questioned, “Is it worth it?”

The thought of blood and frogs and flies and boils and even death seems scary, of course, but there is something about taking that first step into freedom, into the letting go, into the unknown, that keeps us cycling back into our sin and hang-ups. Pressing into potential freedom doesn’t seem like a gamble worth taking.

Maybe that’s where you are today, sweet sister: faltering between whatever perceived safety net you’ve created and the only safe spot we know to be true—our Lord Jesus. I imagine God, though stern in His judgment, understood Pharaoh’s predicament. And I imagine He understands our predicament today. God, while He desires us deeply, will not force us. We must decide for ourselves that the risk of trading in self-worship for God worship is worth it. We must firmly decide that we want the Lord and we desire to see the beauty and joy in how He created us.

Why is that so hard to do? Because self-worship seems alluring, possibly a little edgy, and worth the pursuit. It is through the idolatry of self that God exposes our hidden expectations. We expect our bodies to look a certain way and our backsides to fit into a certain tag number, and when that tag number is not reality, we take back the reins because surely we know better than the Creator of the universe. Surely, He meant for me to always and forever shop in the juniors section. Surely, He got confused and crafted my hips a little wider and my wrinkles a little deeper. Surely, He just made a little boo-boo thirty-four years ago.

“But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9:20–21).

I am convicted by these lines in Romans. When we refuse to accept our bodies for what they are, we are essentially sassing back to our Father. We are back-talking the One who spoke the world into existence! If we believe His plans are perfect and His ways are perfect, then why would we shame our bodies to be anything less than perfect?