Hurricane Irma is making landfall today. My family and I are snugly situated in a friend’s home in a different state. It wasn’t an easy decision to evacuate. Our house and belongings had to be left behind; many people had chosen to stay. But my husband decided that since such young ones lived in our care we needed to exercise caution, so we packed up our van with necessities, loaded up the kids and critters and headed west northwest ahead of the storm. Evacuating proved quite interesting to me. We took back roads and saw countryside that was new to us. We saw license plates from other counties, and vehicles loaded down with everything from boats to motorcycles to pets and suitcases. When we stopped for dinner in Homerville, I chatted with a helpful boy who told me, “It’s gonna be a big’un…but why now of all times? My friends and I were planning a big party and then we had to evacuate.” Ah, the priorities of a kid. It’s true, though, that storms have a way of reordering one’s priorities. Whether they are storms of wind and rain or storms that lash our emotional, physical or spiritual state, we are confronted by what matters the most to us. Storms require a simplification of life and routine in order for them to be weathered with minimal damage. They draw us closer to family and friends and even strangers. Most of all, they remind us that there really is only One who can speak into the storm and order it to be still. Come to think of it, He is the only One who can do that to my heart as well.