Do you know your father’s voice?

Dear Readers:

Do you have that one friend that you may not hear from for a year, but you know their voice instantly when you pick up the phone? It has a familiar timbre-that familiar pitch-and you are back in conversation as if no time has passed at all.

I feel that way each time a storm rolls in. Growing up in Kansas, thunderstorms came with a fury and intensity I have yet to see in Oklahoma. Within a moments notice, the blue sky would turn a sickly green and then a deep black. It would rip open as lightening splintered across the sky, and a piercing crack would echo throughout the plains.

Thunder would fester from within the earth, grumbling all the way to the surface until it finally would scream into the atmosphere, shaking the paintings on our walls.

As a child, the storms fascinated me, scared me, humbled me and intoxicated me.

The older I got, my love affair with storms grew. I found covering outside to watch as the storm brewed over the field in my backyard. I loved the stillness right before the storm. The birds became silent and found shelter. The hay stopped swaying and the earth grew quiet for a moment. Suddenly, a loud clap would wake everything up and rain would pour down on me.

I heard the voice of my Father calling to me through those storms, reminding me of who He is. And as the hot rain fell on my skin, I would feel the cleansing power of water-of baptism.

My Father speaks to me in many ways-but my favorite is through a storm. A storm is unpredictable, beautifully dangerous, radically different and fiercely chaotic. But in the end, the earth has been cleansed and a sweet peace falls as the storm moves on.

It reminds me of my God. He will shake me to the core, He will cleanse me and He will bring me peace. I know the Father’s voice so intimately that I not only hear it in every storm, but throughout every day as I keep in constant communication with Him.

Do you know your Father’s voice?