The Big Sissies

One summer night during a severe thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small son into bed. She was about to turn the light off when he asked in a trembling voice, “Mommy, will you stay with me all night?” Smiling, the mother gave him a warm, reassuring hug and said tenderly, “I can’t dear. I have to sleep in Daddy’s room.” A long silence followed. At last it was broken by a shaky voice saying, “The big sissy!” (Source unknown)

How many of us feel a bit superior and critical when we imagine the disciples begging Jesus to awake and save them from the horrendous storm? Maybe we, too, think to ourselves “The big sissies.”

It’s the Monday morning quarterback syndrome that gives us our superior vantage point. We know the ending of the story. “Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.”

Maybe we need to apply this privileged perspective to the torrential storms in our own lives. Think back to your toughest times. Did you wonder where the hand of God was in the loneliness, the loss, the injustice? Was he taking a snooze while you suffered day by day? It is only in hindsight that you realize that the Lord actually did calm those waters.

Hold on to that memory. Trust that the same will happen again. Expect the storm; don’t mistake his quietness for his absence. Remember the rainbow will have the final say! Kathleen M. Sullivan ’82MA ’87PhD