A Thursday afternoon in eastern Virginia, drifting toward evening. My attention to our late and lengthening staff meeting was increasing diluted by thoughts of dinner, and by the ominous clouds swiftly darkening the skies about the parking lot out front.
The coffee house we were patronizing was drawing a steady stream of customers; none seemed especially concerned by weather they probably see more often than I do. As an out-of-towner, I observed the faces but didn’t know anyone. I was charmed, though, by the sight of a husky Hispanic fellow who parked his big SUV directly in front, then carefully navigated his three-year-old girl through one of the glass doors. Hand-in-hand, they walked over to the counter.
Outside the rain began to fall – first in sporadic drops, then in torrents. After a few moments, the torrents turned white, and hail began bouncing off the sidewalks and the cars in the parking lot. Our meeting broke up as several of us scurried to the windows, astonished at the size of the hail stones hurtling out of the sky: pebbles became golf balls, golf balls became tennis balls, leaving sizeable dents on the doors and hoods and roofs of vehicles.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the big dad hurrying toward the door with his little girl, apparently planning to make a dash for his SUV. I moved to intercept him. “You might want to wait,” I suggested, pointing out a few fist-sized hailstones on the walk outside the door.
Then I saw the intent look in his widening eyes. “My little boy’s still in the car,” he said.
He pushed the door ajar. A chunk of hail bounced through the crack. From the car, a few yards away, came rising wails of panic.
He looked around – like everyone else in the group now crowding the windows – for something to use as a shelter from the barrage. Nobody seemed to have an umbrella, or even a heavy jacket.
The coffee shop was owned by a church, though, and off to one side, more glass doors opened onto the back of the worship center. There, oddly, on the floor, lay a small pile of blue patio umbrellas.
The dad snatched one up and made for the front door, grappling with the bulky fabric. As he reached the door, a little boy of about 5 came running through the downpour, drenched and bawling. A rock of hail bounced off his head as his dad reached out and yanked him inside.
“The glass came down!” he sobbed, as we brushed little pieces off his hair and shirt. “It came down on me!” His dad glanced out at the rain and hail pouring through his SUV’s shattered sunroof.
“You guys wait here,” he said to his children, as he plunged out into the weather, umbrella in hand.
“DADDY!” the little boy cried, almost hysterical. A barista and I tried to calm him, but the sobs kept pouring like the rain outside.
I glanced over at his little sister. She was jumping up and down, dancing and laughing, watching her hero do … well, whatever he was doing, out there under that big blue umbrella. “DADDY!” she cheered.
Outside, Daddy was fumbling to fit the umbrella to the hole in his sunroof, his efforts complicated by the blood streaming from a long cut where his arm caught a jagged edge. Inside, the little boy’s hysterics were gradually fading, but he kept rubbing his forehead.
“Stuffy,” he wailed, softly. The barista and I looked at each other. Sinus trouble?
“DADDY!” The little girl laughed and hopped and pointed. Her brother looked up, wiping at his eyes, still murmuring, “Stuffy,” hopelessly.
The door burst open and the father staggered back inside, soaking wet and bloody armed. In his good hand was something small and fluffy and blue that he kept shaking water from, picking off pieces of glass. It looked like a whale that'd seen all seven seas, but as he held it out, the boy lunged for it.
“STUFFY!”
His little sister laughed with delight. The afternoon, to her mind, could not possibly have gone any better.
Later that evening, my philosophical bent kept bending, thinking back on that half-hour. How oblivious all the regulars had been to the storm sweeping down upon them. How unprepared we all are, even under darkening skies, for what’s about to rain down upon us.
What a difference there is, between those who sit comfortably with their happy distractions, and those who go adventuring with their Father.
How hopeless it all looks, if we let it look that way. And how great our Father seems – if we trust Him – out in the midst of the storm, working in ways we can’t imagine or understand.
How good, and loving, and merciful He is, to take care of the things that mean so very much to us.
Dark skies above. Dangers ahead. But then, where is there adventure without danger?
So many things, falling cruel and cold all around us … yet how small they seem, when our Father is with us. Standing above us, strong and good.
Standing between us and the terrible. Standing between us and the storm.
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