Thunderstorms are beautiful. The lightning and thunder are nothing short of a visual sight of God's idea for excitement, beauty, and necessity all bundled into one puffy cloud.

Did you know lightning hits from the ground up? At least that's what my 7th or 8th grade science teacher told me. It doesn't make sense to me why it would work like that. I will probably never know or care to know, but when lightning strikes I don't care about where it came from. It is there, it came to me and I find myself surrounded by a storm. Why do I find that beautiful?

Inside of that chaos, inside of the darkness I find peace. When the rain trickles off the gutters, the sky is lit by broken strands of light, when loud thunder becomes silence again and again.... that is when the beauty comes.

Because there is one thing that I have always found true after a thunderstorm. After the rain passes.... the lightning ends... and the thunder stops.... the sky appears again... it always does. There is nothing more beautiful then the sky after you have driven or stood in the storm.

I have seen my fair share of storms. They usually find me when I am driving home or back to college. I never hesitate to stop and look at the sky. I have pulled off in many random locations on interstates to just stop and look at the sky. They continue to get more and more beautiful after every storm I go through. Remember that the storms will come..... and sometimes you will find them.... but there is always a sky more beautiful then you can hope for on the other side of the chaos and darkness. Stand strong... enjoy your storms... because your roots and foundation can't grow without being tested and pushed.

you are loved,
--brian mccluskey