the thunder rolls

After I put my youngest son to bed the other night, I could still hear him talking from his crib. "Turn off, turn off." A repeating, non-stop chant. After a few minutes I went back in. Maybe it was the light from the window, or the nightlight. It's a little hard to figure out exactly what an almost two-year old is talking about. I sat and rocked him for a while, singing to him and talking. I listened to the late evening storm beginning, the thunder in the distance. He still repeated, "turn off, mommy, turn off." "The thunder? Turn of the thunder?" I asked him. His brown eyes widened and he nodded, murmuring "k, k" (his main affirmation) through his paci.
I smiled when I realized. Explaining to him that I can't turn off the thunder was a little complicated. I told him a story. "When I was little I was afraid of the thunder too. My mom, your Mimi, used to sing me a little song -- God made the lightning go flash! God made the thunder go boom! God made the rain come down really hard and God made it all for you! She sang it to me so many times I still remember the tune. His eyes were getting brighter and he was obviously wide awake. I took him downstairs and showed him the heavy gray clouds, beginning to spill over the big drops that splat on the sidewalk. The warm air blew some rain onto us in the doorway. He was frantically talking now, "Clouds, rain, clouds, clouds, rain, water, rain, God, clouds." When my husband came home he was still going strong, telling him all about it.
He took him upstairs after a while, rocked him, sang him songs, now that the thunder was gone, he calmed down.
Later we realized this was probably the first storm that he could remember. Being so small, he just couldn't pull up the memories of the past storms. I realized how I take these great big earth-shaking, God-produced storms as part of life, a normal part of my world, but to him it truly was a magnificent event, a once-in-a-lifetime nature moment to be remembered. He woke up thinking about clouds and rain.
I was thinking about Psalm 29.

"1 Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.

3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.

4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.

5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

6 He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the Lord strikes
with flashes of lightning.

8 The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord is enthroned as King forever.

11 The Lord gives strength to his people;
the Lord blesses his people with peace."



I thanked God for giving me such a sweet reminder of His voice, through the voice of the thunder, through the voice of my child.