Hurricane #2

Hurricane number 2 since we moved to Florida in 2018 is here.  As I write this, Ian is still off the coast near Port Charlotte, 80 miles south.  The current prediction is the storm will make landfall in about an hour.  In the meantime, swirling bands of wind and rain have been hanging over Sun City Center.  One oak tree branch has blown down without damage to our condo. 
I am watching the effects of the storm from the security of our lanai, a room with three walls of windows.  Directly across the street is a tall palm tree with a full crown of pinnately ('feather-leaved') fronds. The fronds dance in the 30 mile an hour prevailing wind and bow dramatically in the face of the heavier gusts. Their flexibility is astonishing; once the gust has subsided, they rise from the bow to dance again. The stem of the tree is slender and strong resisting the winds efforts to bend and break it. 
The palm tree in the wind reminds me of the lesson Jesus gives in Matthew 7:24 - 27
The Wise and Foolish Builders
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
I pray for you and me our faith is like the stem of the palm firmly rooted in God; and like the fronds able to dance and bow and return to our center as God’s chosen people in the face of the troubles in our circumstances.