When Life Goes Dark

I was prepared for bad weather to hit during my shift Thursday, but wasn't prepared for what actually happened. Just as the WLBT 6pm newscast was beginning and as the floor crew were about to give us our signals, a large boom was heard outside the studio and we found ourselves in the dark. Pitch black. Howard, Maggie and I sat still thinking the studio lights would flicker back on momentarily. They didn't. People rushed in to check on us and a few made their way into the studio with flashlights. Then word came: the Entergy substation in downtown was hit by multiple lightning strikes and all of downtown was dark. It would be at least an hour before we knew what to do. There were only a few flashlights in the building so most of us used our cellphones to provide enough light to help us walk the halls; others grabbed decorative candles in their offices and lit them to provide more light. We were even locked inside WLBT for a short period of time due to the security doors and gates. We sat, we waited, we talked.

When the lights came back on at 7:05pm, the first problem had been solved. The second issue we had a in place as big as WLBT is to get the computers up and running again. That took quite some time. By 9pm, all systems were completely back online and we could prepare for the rest of the evening that would see bad weather.

Have you ever been caught off guard by the lights going off in your life? What a mess you can find yourself in. Everything is going well for you, then *boom*, lightning strikes and you find yourself wandering down a dark hallway in your life just scrambling to put the pieces back together again.

John 14:18 says, "God will not abandon me or leave me an an orphan in the storm--He will come to me." James 1:2-4 goes on to say, "I will be happy when the way is rough, because it gives my patience a chance to grow. So I will let it grow, and not try to squirm out of my problems. For when my patience is finally in full bloom, then I will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete."

Hanging tight in the middle of a storm can be hard, especially when you want everything fixed right then! But God is the master in the middle of the mess and teaches us how to persevere, even when it's hard to find our way down the dark hallway of life.