It was slightly more than a year ago that Hurricane Irma rolled through the southeastern United States, dumping several inches of rain and pelting every town along the way with severe winds. We knew it was coming. We'd seen the warnings, we'd heard the stories, and we all could look at pictures of this massive storm.
When Irma hit Athens, it was quite a sight to behold. The rain and wind blasted against windows while people took shelter in their homes, most of which were without power eventually.
I know our house lost power for four or five days and everything in our fridge went bad. Which was fun.
Of course, we weren't there. My wife and I were at St. Mary's Hospital dealing with a storm of our own.
When Irma hit town, we were 9.5 months pregnant. That is to say...well past due.
First children are often late, or at least to the very end of full-term. That's not really a concern for most doctors since they see it all the time. I can say with certainty that it was getting to be uncomfortable for Ivey, and there was some concern in our home because we were ready to meet this baby.
So on Sep. 9 we went to my parents' house to grill, celebrate my sister's birthday, and watch the UGA vs. Notre Dame game, what turned out to be a great game but a really bad idea. Because Sep. 10, we had to be up at 4am to go to St. Mary's to get ready for this baby.
I can tell you with complete certainty that if you're having a baby, make sure you go into that process as rested as can be. Wives don't like it when you take naps while they're trying to give birth.
So the first few hours were pretty calm. We got to rest while the midwives and doulas prepared to induce labor. Without going into too many details, it started becoming clear that the little boy liked his apartment too much to move out. Nothing the doctor's did would really encourage Kenneth to come on out.
About dinner time, the midwife put a fetal heart monitor on Ivey to see how our little boy was doing. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great, either. They would come in throughout the night to tell us that his heartbeat was getting worse and they would most likely have to forego everything else in favor of surgery.
At nearly 7am, the decision was final. Our little boy was struggling and we had to go into surgery.
I'm not proud to admit this next part, but I was quite loopy from sleep loss and didn't fully understand what was going on at the moment. Ivey and the doctors tried telling me, but I wasn't fully cognizant of how serious the situation was.
The more I woke up, the better I understood how serious the situation was. My wife was about to undergo a major surgical procedure and there was nothing I could do but sit outside the room and wait.
My wife is an amazing woman. She works at a hospital and takes care of people and deals with these sorts of situations all the time. I don't know how she does it all the time, because even thinking about her having to endure surgery made me quite anxious.
A little after 8am, they took her back into the operating room while I sat outside and waited. Time disappeared while I was sitting there. I just know that I prayed and I prayed and I prayed for the duration.
During my prayer, a song came to mind that I had not heard in a very long time. It was Joel Goddard's "Who Is This?"
I'm including the song here so you can listen to it, but I also want to reference the scripture that this song is pulled from. That's part of what makes it such a powerful song, obviously, being that these are words directly referencing Jesus Christ and just one of the amazing things He did in the presence of His disciples.
As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” 36 So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). 37 But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.
38 Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”
39 When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40 Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”
Mark 4:35-41 (NLT)
Sitting on the small, slightly cushioned medical-green couch outside that operating room, while a hurricane literally started to roll into Athens, I quietly sang this song to myself over and over again.
"Who is this
That even the winds and the waves obey Him."
I need to clarify a couple of things before I go much further. Neither Ivey nor our son were in life-threatening danger. Had we not acted quickly, they could have been. Had we been going through this situation perhaps 50 years ago, they absolutely would have been in danger. Where we were, though, and with how God had been watching over us, the danger was really quite minimal.
There are people who have gone through far worse situations in child birth than we did, I am well aware of that, but I wanted to tell this part of the story because it was a moment that reinforced something for me: Our God is not only God in the storm, but He is the God of the storm.
Storm preparation is very important. I chained my grill to the deck.
Sometimes we think of God as a shelter, somewhere we can go and hide to get away from the storm. It's a lovely image, and not entirely inaccurate, but it misses the most beautiful part. God is not just a place to go in a storm, God is the one who controls the storm. He tells the storm where to go and when to go. He directs the storm's path, He controls how strong it is.
And when He speaks, the storm goes away.
Right now there's someone reading this and thinking, "If God is the God of the storm, then shouldn't we blame Him for all the damage the storm causes?" I know why you feel that why. I really do. And had I lost my wife or child that day, I might be asking the same question.
But let me tell you how David approached that problem in his life. See, he messed up. David got a little big for his britches one day and demanded a census be taken in Judea. He wanted to know exactly how many fighting men he had, rather than relying on God's power to win battles.
And because of that, God decided to punish David and the kingdom. David was given three choices for his punishment: the enemy's sword, a great famine, or a plague brought by the angel of the Lord.
David's response here shows a lot of wisdom, and I think we would do well to learn from him.
"I’m in a desperate situation!” David replied to Gad. “But let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great. Do not let me fall into human hands.”
1 Chronicles 21:13 (NLT)
The plague killed 70,000 people very quickly, and was getting ready to kill even more as the angel of the Lord approached Jerusalem. But the Lord gave them mercy and called off the plague.
Sure, you can blame God for the storm if you want to, but you have to understand that even in the storm, His mercy is greater. His love is greater.
Around 8:45am, someone came out to bring me in where I could see Ivey. It broke my heart to see her on an operating table like that, but that sorrow was turned to joy just 20 minutes later as our beautiful boy was born at 9:08am. We first met Kenneth Willard Wynn that morning, and the last year with him has been such a beautiful experience.
“I’m just gonna take a little nap here, okay?” (Photo by Wendell Nash…for insurance, not a blog)
We stayed at the hospital until power was back on at our home. We were able to do that because of the surgery Ivey had to endure, insurance covered the exact amount of time we needed or else we would have taken a newborn baby to a house with no power and, oh yeah, a tree sitting gently on top of the roof.
As I sat at the hospital, holding my new son and helping my wife recover, I watched as a hurricane rolled through the city and poured inches of rain down. Sitting there, seeing a very real, literal storm push trees to their limit and make the roads like slip'n slides, I remembered this powerful truth: My God is the God of the storm, and there is no storm in this world or in my life stronger than Him.
Even though he's young, I'm doing my best to teach Kenneth this lesson. I often sing Joel's song to him when I'm trying to soothe him or get him to fall asleep. Admittedly, Joel Goddard fits in the rotation somewhere alongside Elvis, Garth Brooks, and George Strait.
As we sit back and wait for Florence to arrive, wherever and whenever that arrival may be, and while we remember the storm our nation went through 17 years ago this week that we are still fighting the remnants of, we must remember that God is the God of the storm.
Our first family picture.
I wasn't initially crazy about the thought of my son being born on September 11th, but now I'm glad that he was. Just as God used that morning to remind me that He is the God of the storm, Kenneth's birth on what was such a dark day many years before reminds me that even the worst days can be turned to good. That's the power of our God, who is with us in the storm because He created the storm, He controls the storm, and only He can end the storm.