Thunderstorm

When I am scared of the thunderstorm as if it is shattering the sky, I feel like God is mad, or my Greek mythology ass thinks that Zeus is having arguments with Poseidon or Hades.

I hid in my blanket and covered my ears. The sounds streamed to my soul. I thought the sky might crack or the houses would be destroyed. I whispered, “God, are you mad at us? Forgive us, human beings, forgive me,” as if He would hear me and stop the thunderstorm. I don't want to face the apocalypse, not now, I think. Somewhere between the roaring sky and my trembling chest, it occurred to me that perhaps the storm was never just in the clouds. Imagine how God will destroy the earth in an apocalypse, imagine when He says “enough” to all of us, it is more than just a thunderstorm.

Definitely, no one is ever as patient and merciful as God. Yet it makes me think that patience and all the feelings we feel can break out at any time. Perhaps, because we are human, and patience has limits for us. It could appear as the feelings that we hide, such as anger, sorrow, weariness, being worn down, worry, hollowness, and loneliness. All of that is intertwined in our mind, heart, and body, and there is a moment when it can collapse and create thunderstorms that even we never expected.

And maybe that is why the thunder feels so personal. Because it echoes something we try so hard to silence.

I stayed under my blanket a little longer, listening, not just to the sky, but to myself. The noise outside was loud, violent even, but it wasn’t unfamiliar. It sounded like all the words I swallowed, all the tears I postponed, all the exhaustion I refused to admit. The storm did not come out of nowhere. It gathered, slowly, quietly, until it no longer could.

Just like us.

We call it patience when we endure, when we keep forgiving, when we keep understanding. But sometimes, patience is only a quiet storage of everything we never release. And one day, without warning, it spills. Not gracefully, not gently, but all at once, like thunder splitting the sky open.

I wondered then if God ever feels tired of us the way we feel tired of everything. If the storm is not anger, but release. Not destruction, but a reminder. That even the sky cannot hold everything forever.

Because what if one day, I become the storm?

What if all the things I bury, my anger, my grief, and my loneliness decide to rise all at once? Would I recognize myself? Or would I become something destructive, something uncontrollable, just like the thunder I feared?

The rain and thunderstorm outside might just fade in a few hours.

But the one within me is still learning how to.