As I sat in the darkness of the stairwell going to the basement of my home last Wednesday during the second onslaught, I thought how alone I felt with only my little dog to keep me company. The song kept going over in my mind, “’Til the Storm Passes By,” as I listened to the hail and other things hitting the house, and the wind’s howling.

I had grabbed my cellphone from the car in the garage and I called my son, who is in school in Atlanta. “Just want to hear a comforting voice,” I told him, as I assured him everything at my place seemed intact. The storm subsided somewhat as we talked — the phone going off and on — and the hail stopped rattling the windows. I told him we’d talk again later and closed my phone.

So, “... in the dark of the midnight, have I oft hid my face; While the storms howl about me and there’s no hiding place.”

With the lights off, the darkness offered a perfect opportunity to play the piano — the louder, the better. I mean, what else can you do in the dark besides sleep? I did light an old oil lamp after I got off the phone, but I realized it didn’t have enough oil to reach the wick. So I poured in some water to make the oil rise so it would burn.

“Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of thy hand,” continued the song ... “keep me safe ’til the storm passes by.”

There are times when we are bombarded also with the storms of life. David said in Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.”

Another time in Chapter 27, the Psalmist says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear: the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Who doesn’t at sometime come to a mountain in his life? Who doesn’t at sometime feel all alone in the darkness with no one to reach out to?

It’s at these times we say, “If I ever needed the Lord before, I sure do need Him now.”

But it doesn’t have to be a time of crisis before we reach out to God. How much better it is to have a continuing relationship with Christ — to feel secure in that relationship and to know and love Him as friend and Savior.

The storm will pass. The danger will cease. The hurt will heal. Blessed (happy) is the person who trusts in the Lord. “He is my rock and my salvation.”