Terry heard my cry and reacted, suddenly applying the brakes. Through my side-view mirror, I saw a line of cars reacting to our car, screeching to a sudden halt.
“Oh dear!”
“Don’t tell me,” Terry mustered a smile, still ashen from the false alarm. “You were on one of your Nellie cloud missions.”
My 80-something Aunt Nellie was recovering from surgery following a bad fall. Her days of recovery were spent reading and cloud watching through her front window. When I called to pray for her each week, she would update me on the week’s latest amazing cloud formations. Last night she had exclaimed, “My dear Sandra, guess what cloud I saw today? A dancing hippopotamus!”
Nellie always ended our weekly phone call by challenging me to see if I could top her unusual cloud sighting for the week. My discovery just moments ago in the car-two dolphins leaping and swimming across the sky-would surely bring a smile to my aunt’s face.
As Terry’s face regained its color, he resumed his safe driving, and I resumed my dolphin watch-only to discover an ominous cloud growing darker and larger than life by the second. In front of the rampaging cloud were two smaller clouds, mere remnants of my dolphins. By this time my imagination was in full throttle, as my little clouds appeared to sprout legs, running to escape being swallowed alive. OK Sandra, I thought, you are definitely projecting you and Terry and the past months on those little clouds. So I firmly declared out loud: “Now stop that!”
Before Terry could slam on the brakes again, I quickly shared with him the grim picture in the sky and how my cloud scenario reminded me of some financial challenges we had been facing the last few months. We of course knew we were not the only people facing economic challenges. The television news programs and newspaper headlines made it difficult to escape the topic.
As we drove on in somber-and I must admit, tense-silence, a shaft of the sun’s light broke through the clouds, flooding our car with vibrant warmth. In that moment I heard from somewhere in and around me that still small voice of the Lord: “Be at peace, the Son has always been here, even in the darkest of moments.”
I was reassured suddenly of the power of the triune God Almighty-forever faithful (see Heb. 10:23; 1 Cor. 1:9; 1 John 1:9), reigning as the head above all His creation (see Col. 2:10), with Christ our hope of glory (see Col. 1:27; 1 Tim. 1:1), giving us always victorious outcomes and the abundant life, despite what the enemy threatens to steal, to kill, or to destroy (see John 10:10). If you or someone you know feels overwhelmed by grim financial forecasts, I invite and challenge you to turn to the power of God’s Word and His pathway-to true and lasting peace and strength for your day.
Press on. Walk by faith, not by the sight (see 2 Cor. 5:7). Turn to your great, loving and faithful Lord. After all, His heart knows the load your shoulders are carrying. If you turn to Him, His hand will take that load and carry it so you won’t have to.
James Lasher 
Abby Trivett 
