The radio has been on all afternoon. The cone of the forecast has shifted twice, and each time the whole island seems to hold its breath. By evening the plywood is up over the front windows, the drums are full of water, the tins of sardines and crackers are stacked on the kitchen counter, and your father is on the roof checking the straps on the tank for the third time. Next door, the neighbours are doing the same. There is a particular quiet that settles over a street when everyone has done what they can and all that is left is to wait.
Anyone who has lived through a hurricane season knows that feeling. A house stops being just a place to live and becomes a shelter. And you discover very quickly what kind of shelter it is.
A tent, a dwelling, a rock
David knew about days of trouble. He had been hunted, betrayed, surrounded. In Psalm 27 he writes: “For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock” (Psalm 27:5, NIV).
Three images tumble over each other: a dwelling, a tent, a rock. None is quite enough on its own, so David piles them up. It is the language of someone who knows how exposed he is, and who has found a refuge more secure than any building.
Notice what the psalm does not say. It does not say the trouble will not come. It speaks of “the day of trouble” as a certainty. The promise is not that the storm will miss you, but that you will be held while it passes.
Faith and plywood
Some Christians feel a quiet tension here. If God is our shelter, why are we nailing plywood over the windows? Isn’t that a lack of faith?
Scripture does not seem to think so. Noah was told to build an ark. Joseph stored grain for seven years before the famine. Nehemiah prayed and posted a guard (Nehemiah 4:9). Trusting God and preparing wisely are not rivals. They belong together. Securing the roof, clearing the drains, checking the shutters, filling the water drums and knowing where the important documents are kept: these are acts of stewardship, done by people who believe that God has entrusted them with a home and a family to protect.
But preparation has its limits. Every Caribbean family has a story of a storm that took more than anyone expected: a roof that lifted despite the straps, a gully that flooded where it never had before, a house that stood while the one across the road did not. Plywood can do a great deal. It cannot hold everything. And that is exactly where Psalm 27 speaks.
Being a shelter for others
There is another side to this psalm. Those who have been sheltered by God are called to shelter others. In storm season, that is beautifully practical. It is the family with the concrete house who takes in the elderly neighbour whose zinc roof is old. It is the young man who goes round the lane before the wind picks up, checking that everyone has water. It is the church that opens its hall. It is the phone call from Toronto or London to make sure Auntie has somewhere safe to go.
A house becomes more than a shelter when its doors are open to the people most at risk. In a small way, it becomes a picture of the dwelling David describes: a place where the vulnerable are hidden and kept safe.
Other kinds of storms
Not every day of trouble comes with a forecast. Some arrive as a phone call from the doctor, a letter from the bank, a marriage falling apart, a child in danger. There is no plywood for these. The shutters we put up are different: we call our closest friends, we ask the church to pray, we sit with the Psalms in the middle of the night.
In those storms, too, the promise is the same. God does not always stop the wind. But he offers a shelter that no wind can lift, and a rock that no flood can move.
When the wind drops
Eventually the storm passes. People come out into the road to look. Branches down, a few sheets of zinc in the gully, the light gone for days. And then, almost immediately, the clearing up begins, neighbours working side by side, sharing chainsaws and cooking on coal stoves. It is often in those days that a community discovers how strong it really is.
For reflection
- What practical steps could our household take this season to be better prepared, for ourselves and for our neighbours?
- In the storms that have no forecast, where do I run first for shelter?
A short prayer: Lord, you are my shelter in the day of trouble. Give us wisdom to prepare our homes, courage to open our doors to others, and peace to rest in you when the wind is loud. Set our feet on the rock that does not move. Amen.
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