Welcome to the Infinitely Precious Podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and we're together for another opportunity to be companions on this journey, the infinitely precious journey of life. Today, I thought I would talk about something that seems fairly natural and that I observed this afternoon. I was sitting in the living room with a cup of coffee with my lovely wife, Linda, and we were watching out from my chair in the living room. I can see out the front window and the back window.

And the sky had become slightly gray after having been pretty cloudless for the rest of the day. And then suddenly, after glancing in another direction, I looked out the window and saw the trees bending in the wind, and suddenly there was a storm outside my window. And you could see, the smaller saplings dancing, pushed to and fro by the wind. The larger trees leaned into it, but certainly gave with the wind. And as I was watching, I thought about the storms that life brings our way at various points.

I suspect none of us really chase the storms. We don't encourage the storms to show up, and sometimes they show up with very little warning. We have to wonder what we're gonna do in the midst of the storms that show up with very little warning. The funny thing this afternoon was the storm that blew up very quickly lasted for a very short period of time, short relatively short, five, ten minutes, and then it was clear again. We could wish for all the storms that blow into our lives to be short, but one of the things I reflect on when I look out the window and saw the storm today is that I don't have control over when a storm shows up.

I don't have much control over how long the storm stays. I can only observe and, see that the storm is here and then choose in this moment how I will respond to the storm. Will I dance wildly like the young saplings in my yard did as the wind pushed them all around? Will I lean into it or lean away from it, allowing the force of the storm to pass over me? Well, I try to stand up to the storm.

I don't know a whole lot of trees that try to do that, and the ones that can't bend far enough sometimes snap in half with a strong enough wind. How do I best live in to the storms that are a part of my life? How do you? How do we all face the storms, particularly when a storm arises that seems both unexpected and unending? When the storm just continues to push our limits.

When can we no longer bend to the storms of our lives and allow them to flow over us? When do we stand? Do we ever does a storm ask of us that we stand up to it or that we recognize that storms are a part of life and receive them as they come, recognize the challenges they bring. Having recognized them, release them, and return once again to whatever semblance of peace we can find. The truth is our wholeness is not threatened by the storm.

Who we are is not threatened by the storm. The storm beyond our control is simply something we can observe and recognize our place within it. Today, as the storm blew up, my watch decided to announce the rain will be ending in twenty one minutes. I looked out the window, and it wasn't raining. So I'm not sure what rain was going to end in twenty one minutes, but my watch wanted to keep me informed.

Now I could have built my life around my wife's my light my watch's prediction. I didn't. May be right, and in twenty one minutes I can go outside and take a long walk if that's what I want to do, but it's also possible that my watch is just trying to give me a way to visualize the storm itself, try to give me the illusion that I have some control that if I can endure for twenty minutes, it will all be okay. And that's just not always the way storms work. They blow up when we least expect them.

When they're here, they're unpredictable. You don't know how strong, how tumultuous they will be. And when the storms of our emotions, the storms of our relationships, whether the relationship is facing the challenges that life brings its way, All of those pieces all of those pieces invite a kind of opportunity, not for us to try to predict and control what is happening, but to rise up in the moment and respond to what is happening. I couldn't stop the storm. Wouldn't even want to try to stop the storm.

Some people tell me we really still need the rain here in our area. We haven't gotten quite enough. So there's no interest on my part in stopping the storm. Watching the storm, recognizing the metaphor that is the storm of my life, recognizing what blows in and blows out, seeing what might be there for me to learn from the storm that has blown in. Now let me just be honest about that.

Sometimes when we're in the midst of a storm, it is so overwhelming. There isn't any interest in discovering what this can teach me. The best I can do is how can I make it through this? And that's an okay place to be. You don't have to have all the answers.

That's one of the biggest challenges I think we face in life sometimes. We need to have answers to all the storms. We need to be able to handle the storms that blow our way and do so in a way that other people perceive as graceful. That's not what life is all about. I think that the truth of storms is they will come and they will go.

That while they're here, we must learn to live in the midst of them and find a way to the far side. It's not always clear how to do that. We live from moment to moment to moment. We receive what comes our way. We recognize what it's bringing.

We perhaps recognize once again that there are things in our lives that are truly beyond our control, And perhaps we find comfort in our finitude recognizing that it's perhaps a good thing we can't control everything. As much as we'd like to believe it would be great to control things, perhaps it's a good thing that we can't control all things. And once we've recognized our lack of control, our finite nature, once we've received the storm, we can release our desire to be controlling of the storm, our attachment to, the calmness of life, and recognize that storm or calm or in between, we are a gift in the midst of it all, and that maybe all we need to do is remember our own gift, the gift of life, the gift of being present in whatever storm blows our way, the gift of the opportunity to freely respond as we choose to the storms that blow our way. Whether they're the literal storms of life, which if you've ever been in a hurricane or high seas, feel completely and are completely out of your control, the best you can do is to steer as well as you can in the midst of those storms.

So if you're in a storm, my friends, and I find myself in storms regularly, if you find yourself in the midst of the storm, steer carefully. Learn to take each moment as it comes. Let the storm teach you about your resilience, about your strength, about your inability to control every aspect of your life. Let it be a teacher and a reminder that we are in control of so very little except for the moment's response that is ours to give. I don't know if you find that helpful.

It is my reflection having been a part of a storm that blew through and is now gone. Until the next time, my friends, I wish you all the best. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. Until the next time.