we all experience the storms of life. It's what we do after they pass that matters.

1. It’s the cold of winter as the valley of the great city fills with deep dark smog enveloping everything in its path. The image has the appearance of blackened smoky soup in a bowl of portentously powerful mountains.

2. The western horizon reveals towering gray clouds manifesting the incoming onslaught of winter storms.

3. Thick haze begins to ebb and flow as the winds roll ferociously over the peaks of the treacherous mountains and down their massive slopes into the valley below.

4. Trees bend violently in the fury of the storm while the afternoon sky darkens.

5. Soon the entire skyline is covered by swirls of heavy laden snow clouds ready to unleash their fury on anything lying within their determined course and then…

6. silence.

7. One simple snow flake floats quietly and haphazardly to the earth

8. landing perfectly as though it were meant for that particular spot.

9. Suddenly as though the charge had been ordered, the sky explodes in a flood of white.

10. Millions of cohorts follow suit covering the countryside in perfect order leaving no evidence of the former view. Sound fades away as all succumb to the quiet peace of the falling snow.

11. Soon the entire landscape takes on the appearance of an alien world free from denizen.

12. Nothing moves but a wisp of snow as a silent breeze smoothes across the face of the freshly fallen beauty.

13. The tail end of the once ravenous squall slithers silently away inching over and beyond its precipitous captors reach and again there is…

14. silence.

15. It is night time now and the city, set comfortably within the valley glows. The lights as though emeralds, sapphires, amber and diamonds had been placed ever so carefully in a royal crown of jewels.

16. The sky and the air around it are crystal clear with no trace of the murky soup that once occupied this space. It’s beautiful beyond imagination.

17. The angels themselves must be admiring it from their heightened viewpoints wondering how such a thing could be and through the admiration and peace…

18. silence.

19. So it is with our lives .

20. As we journey through mortality we accumulate thick dark clouds of smog in our consciousness. We can’t see the beauty of the sky above or the joy that surrounds us. We feel as though all is lost and begin to succumb to the weight .

21. While we are in our lowest of lows storm clouds appear on the horizon. “How can I handle the trials that are upon me, they seem so great?”

22. The storms seem overwhelming as they hit every inch of our soul converting it to a foreign landscape.

23. As quickly as the storms appear, they do their handiwork and move on taking all that was amiss with them

24. leaving a clear, beautiful admirable soul that even the angels would covet.

25. As though we were a gem in a royal crown, we stand out clean and clear from the filth that was once within us.

26. Yet too often, we allow the smog to slowly creep back in filling in our souls with the darkness we’ve known. We go back to our old routines because that’s what we’re used to, that is what we’ve been conditioned to do and the smog and the haze and the confusion set back in. Thus is the cycle of life. This is what people do.

27. If a person could stay clear after the tempest their wouldn’t be a need for storms. But because we don’t stay clear we have storms in our life and we have them frequently so that we can be reminded of the clarity that we used to enjoy when we were young and before we came here.

28. It is through the storms of life that we become great. There will come a point when we don’t need the storms anymore.

29. Thank You! Nicholas Townsend Smith 2009 www.ntsmotivations.com