We held our breath as it drifted in from the West.

Big, monolithic, towering cumulonimbus clouds marching across the quiet, approaching like an army poised for attack.

Darkness fell in its wake, not even the sun in all of its radiance could withstand such a force. Try as though it willed, each stretch of its golden rays pierced through grey like an arm, grasping for a ledge before the fall, before the embellishing of consuming, and at last complete, darkness.

And fell they did.

Each one steadily snuffed out like fingers pressed over small flame — wisps of hope vanishing into silence.

For an instance, upon dying light and joy, there was stillness.

A stillness not of humble rest but of trepid discontent, a stillness marred with anticipation, of foreboding. A stillness that held a building tension, a spring of action, a final charge and we, upon the battlements of the brigade, watched them march all the nearer, flames alit and swords sharpened, awaiting the front.

At last thunder cracked the sky, disrupting quiet’s embrace — a cannon-shot of artillery as arrows of rain pelted the earth, beginning the onslaught.

We hunkered down, bold and stoic facing the gloam, our children fretting about in the living room, prayers whispered through small lips petitioning for the reinstatement of peace.

But peace would have to wait, the meteorologist declared, alerts and alarms blaring in the background of the news station bringing in second-by-second updates on the offensive.

I had grown up watching this particular meteorologist, a face I knew well, always glowing faintly in the blue-flicker of late-night warnings and impending doom. Time may go by and by and so would life, but I always knew — or subconsciously assumed — that when the skies brought forth their summons, he would once more meet me there, appearing in my TV box like a blink.

Tonight however I thought he looked particularly old, time and life yielding to age, etching permanent creases into his once well-prepared and unflinching face. Yet time didn’t seem to reach his voice, a voice that remained calm and steady — albeit a little gruff sounding — as he marched to-and-fro between the green screen. I confess a part of me grieved seeing his age, an omen of seconds and minutes and years falling like sand through fingertips, lest the pendulum swings and at last concedes to darkness.

As I pondered, I recognized it was because I saw the same subtleties in my own flesh, slowly, ever so slowly, resigning to wrinkles and aches and age.

I hold my kids close, their trembling little bodies anxious in my arms, lightening reflecting upon the rooftops just across the street.

Time will have the final say.

The usher of clashing, the warring of cataclysmal skies thrashed for a night and we, tucked within paper-thin walls surrendered to the will of God, come what may.

For we, against all odds, recognized how miniscule we were against a being of majesty that, with merely a blink and a nod could wield both light and energy enough to snuff out an entire existence should He dare so please.

Though I found myself ever so longing towards the heavens, trusting in the powers that be, come destruction or peace.

My ideals fading to oblivion in reconnaissance.

It could be quite supposed that such impending might would cause distress, — and surely wrong you truly wouldn’t be — though for me, in my impotence before such a force I found a peculiar form of rest.

Through the finitude of flesh and bone conjoined under the inner-staircase trembling, the infinite grandeur of the Lord in His majesty was revealed. Each day a magnificent outpouring of His grace abounding, despite our lack of recognition of the grace that was continually displayed.

I tucked my son and my daughter into our bed on the main floor of our home once the worst had passed, watching once more as the meteorologist stated what we already felt, that we were once again, spared.

In reverence I met my wife at the front window as the lightning continued to illuminate the grey-scale atmosphere, bidding farewell to the colossus at last, retreating.

I watched it drift away quietly, along with my mortal issues I once considered matched in scale.

Rendered obsolete in absolution.

Mine own, my children’s, and my wife’s life placed firmly and forevermore in the essence that holds both the scepter and the sword of the entire cosmos; and for some reason called us love.

My problems appearing at first quite daunting, are nothing but a smoke curtail rising from a fire long gone out. They drifted without shape or purpose, scattered by the same breeze that calmed the storm. What I once carried like boulders on my back now barely lingers, faint in the air, already fading.

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