When it rains, it pours....

A typhoon is coming through right now. I love typhoons. I don't like the damage they do and all that, but I really just like them. My mom made the point that typhoons are so cleansing, and she is right. Days before a typhoon comes here, it is so humid and stifling, especially right up until it comes. And then the strong winds come and the torrents of rain come and it is amazing the crazyness that goes on outside. But when it is gone, it is so clear and fresh outside. The sun comes out and it is so beautiful. Perhaps it is more beautiful because of the furious tempest that just went through.
It seems like it is pouring in the lives of many people that I know right now. A friend's mom who is in a very intense battle with cancer; a good friend who can't return to Japan to teach because she is still very sick from a physical illness that has followed her for several years now; a best friend who had some very scary surgery to repair and revive a punctured lung; and so many more people who are close to me who are hurting.
I myself am doing fine. But so many people are having typhoons in their lives, right at this very moment, all at the same time. I wish that I could endure the typhoons for them, or that the typhoon would leave now and the sun would come out for them. But I can't. All I can do is pray and walk beside them in it. I know that the sun will come out for them again, I just pray that the typhoon doesn't damage too much as it runs its course.
For those of you who I am talking about - I am here talking to our Creator about you. I love you and I want to walk with you in this (even though I am physically so far away). I know it is pouring right now, but that sun is going to come out someday, and things are going to be so fresh and clean and beautiful.