Storm Tossed: A troubled woman finds peace with herself and God in the midst of life's storms. Read Online Free PDF Page B

to be okay. But she was afraid he’d just tell her she was stupid for staying and couldn’t bear the thought of the last words he said to her being something angry, plus her cell phone wasn’t working now anyway. The power in the house must have gone out after she dozed off for a little while. Jackson had been upset earlier when she talked to him, and she didn’t want him hurting her heart again. He didn’t realize how deeply his words cut her sometimes.
    The darkness, except for the flashes of brilliant lightning against an almost purple sky, seemed ubiquitous.
    Rachel shivered as she heard the wail of the wind outside, like a siren, mythological creatures who were part women and part nymphs, whose high-pitched singing seduced and lured sailors to their deaths on the rocks surrounding islands. You’ve read too many stories about shipwrecks , she scolded herself.
    Her stomach growled. Normally Rachel wouldn’t eat at this time of night since she changed her lifestyle of eating and exercising. She might have a handful of almonds around 8 or 9 p.m., and then she was done eating for the night until breakfast time.
    Jackson didn’t think anything of eating half a can of Pringles salt and vinegar chips, a bbq sandwich, and a couple of cans of beer at 10 or 11 p.m. He wasn’t about to “join the program” and get fit and healthy with her. He was immortal and invincible, he’d tell her and Faith jokingly, and then look down dubiously at his big hairy belly. Faith would giggle, and Rachel would shake her head, resigned to working on just herself.
    She opened the package of club crackers, gluten-free, and cut a few slices of cheese, trying not to dwell on her fears. She now wished she’d gone over to her neighbors to eat the pepperoni pizza.
    She wished she could talk to her neighbors, but the storm was brewing and her cell phone wouldn’t work. She wished she could talk to anyone. She was stupid to have stayed over here by herself. But Mr. James had insisted his Topsider Home was the safest house in the community. Her neighbors wanted to stay in their own home, believing they’d weather the storm, just as they had for years. They had named their house “Alice,” and said laughingly that Alice was a feisty old woman and would be just fine.
    The wind picked up outside, a high-pitched, shrieking, ominous sound that sent shivers down her spine. The storm was getting worse, and Rachel began praying in the Spirit under her breath again. She wished she was a heavy sleeper, or could take sleeping pills, but they always left her in a funk the whole day, unable to think clearly. She needed every brain cell possible functioning at its highest for this catastrophe.
    Rachel turned on the weather radio, against her better judgment. Ignorance might be bliss, but being the control freak she was, she couldn’t stand to not know what was going on.
    The announcer, Bob Bright, was saying in an animated voice that there was a 12 foot storm surge in the next town 40 minutes away, and to go now to the very highest level in your home, that your life was at risk. He repeated this two more times, as if to drill it in your head that you were about to meet God face to face. Am I? Rachel wondered.
    Under no circumstances were you to try to outrun the surge in your car or get too close to the water, as this storm was destroying lives and property, Bob warned, his voice breaking momentarily with grief.
    Did he have family in danger now? Rachel could hear the fear in his voice. Reporters are only human, too. She didn’t know how they did their job, staying so calm and emotionally unattached to the news.
    “Do not go to the pier! Do no t go outside to look at the storm! There is a flood alert in eight counties in this area, with flood warnings in 15 other counties across Florida. We are in danger of coastal flooding with more rains and high winds, so please, folks, go to the highest place in your home, if you are still in this area! Winds are now