Mark 4:35-41 
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”
And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.
A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

Mark’s Gospel clips along at such a fast pace Jesus and the disciples retreat to the lakeside for a moments peace. I imagine them heading out with the hopes of a few quiet hours before they are met by the crowds again on the other side. Instead of a quiet night on the lake they were greeted by a great windstorm.

Storms come up in our lives at inopportune and and unexpected times. Often times it seems as if they strike when we’re already burnt out or exhausted. Do you ever feel as if water is coming in faster than you can bale it out?

Once when working with a group of people who are living with young onset Alzheimer’s one of them talked about how difficult it was to deal with every day life, often feeling out to sea as conversations and information raged like storms around them. He talked about how when he came together as a group he remembered that he wasn’t alone. That they were all in the boat together. The difficulty of dealing with memory loss and their shifting identities and family responsibilities were not erased but being  reminded that they weren’t alone in the experience and that others truly knew their pain gave them a sense of peace even amidst the storm.

In the midst of the storms in our own lives we often forget that we don’t face them alone. The disciples aren’t alone in the boat, in the midst of the storm and neither are we.

May you remember that Christ is with you,
even in the midst of the storms that blow up out of nowhere,
May you also be with one another in the midst of life’s difficult storms,
and when the sun breaks through the clouds.