What is it about the weather? How can it be said that God sends it, while at other times we blame it on forces of darkness?

These are pertinent questions in our topsy-turvy-weather times.

And it is pertinent  because the weather, the climate, the nature around us, are crucial as a sign through the Bible.

Who sends what?

One viewer had a salient explanation: "Seems like it’s an accepted tradition that God has granted control over the elements, including weather, to angelic spirits -- also to bad angels, in varying degrees, when it comes to violent or destructive storms," he opines. "If this is true, then it makes perfect sense that, one, God uses lightning to punctuate his sentences at precise moments of spiritual significance, and, two, that we are at times preserved from harm due to weather by prayer and the use of blessed salt or Holy Water."

Amen to that! We get constant reports of folks whose homes have been protected.

Does lightning strike when we have strayed and thus lowered our protection? This came up recently when we received a report (the second in one week) of lightning tearing through a church that allowed various New Age and occult-like material in its programs and bookstore.

Again, we must always seek God's Protection.

We allow dark forces -- sometimes literal ones -- when we are exposed to the wrong elements.

At Fatima in Portugal ninety years ago this week, a tremendous storm hit the night before the Blessed Mother's last glorious appearance (at which time the rain and clouds were dispelled) on October 13.

In the memorable words of historian William Thomas Walsh, "What a night! It was as if the devil, somewhere in the ice and snow that could never slake the burning of his pain, had resolved to destroy with one blow all that remained of the Europe which had so long been his battleground against the Thing he hated most. Somewhere in the dark misery of Siberia, he was permitted, Heaven knows why, to disturb the equilibrium of the air, setting in motion a cold and cutting blast that shrieked across the continent to the western sea" (such that the rain at Fatima turned roads to mud and it poured with such force as to arrive at a slant).

Who can put it better than that?

"A friend sent me a photograph the other day," says Susan Creamer Joy of Kansas City, Missouri. 

"It was taken in Upstate New York and is of an obvious storm cloud in progress. Although no mention was made by my friend of its unusual formation, I was immediately struck by the incredible resemblance of the dark cloud to that of a dragon right down to the lightening, which appears to be coming forth from the 'mouth' of the beast. Also, the way that same bolt of lightening passes behind the left 'eye' makes it all that much more menacing in appearance. Perhaps it is only my imagination that causes me to see winged dragons breathing fire descending to earth, but in light of the overwhelming convergence of 'signs' and unprecedented destructive weather patterns and so forth, it seems a fair judgment and a glimpse into a raging battle most refuse to acknowledge is underway."

It is good of course not to focus on the dark -- not to focus on evil forms -- but we must know where they are and what they cause and remember that God is the Light at the end of every tunnel.

But first there is often the darkness. We receive constant testimonies of holy objects surviving the worst of what the wind can send us.

Do we know that? Have we received that knowledge? Do we truly believe? What about other signs?

God works through nature. Just because something has a "natural" explanation does not mean it did not come from God. Just the opposite!

And many signs seem holy. Isn't this a nice sign?

"On August 26 I woke up around 12:30 a.m. and the moon seemed to be shining differently than I had ever seen it," a nun wrote us from New England. "There were two bands of light coming out of it in the shape of the Cross. It looked like the moon was at the cross point of the two arms of the cross. I thought it was very unusual."

The times we are in!

Open that Bible. It has power that is real. Keep it open to relevant passages. It is a reminder. It is a protection. And is it not family Bibles that are so often found unscathed in the rubble of a twister?

Adds Ray Long, an organist for a church in Detroit: "I’ve gotten into the habit of reciting Psalm 91, and encourage others to do the same. Check it out, if you haven’t already."

[resources: Deliverance from Evil Spirits and The Spiritual Combat]

[Note from a man in medical profession in Pennsylvania: I was reading the advice given to Christians by many church approved 'seers' about protecting your home with a cross or, preferably, a Crucifix on or above all of your doors.

something inside me just nagged me about getting these for the doors and something else made me feel almost silly about putting something like this on the inside or outside of each door.  To be very honest, after all, I have friends who are Christians but never cross a church's doorway.  I am not saying they are bad Christians but some things make them uncomfortable.  I have friends who are good people, honest people who never enter a church too. 

Never the less, I obtained two wooden Crucifixes  for each door and attached them with simple silicone.  At first  I was self conscious about them as I was about  my Brown Scapular which I wore and was seen by many each time I changed in the physician's lounge for work.

Since my one surgery I have no short term memory and some date specific memory but my wife remembers things like they happened yesterday.  I asked her today, "How long ago was it when the twister went through the development and took down so many Oaks and took out the power."  She thought and said our son was twelve at the time so it had to be twenty years ago.

The neighbors on both sides and across the street lost large oaks: they were blown down, twisted off, split apart and mangled in every imaginable way and all had no power.

 We lost not a tree, had some leaves and small branches down but two other things also happened.

We were the only ones in the development with electrical power and more amazingly, the empty trash cans which stood 30ft from blown down Oaks were not moved out of place and that included the light lids.  This actually frightened me as how could plastic trash cans and lids possibly remain in place?

It was as if our environment was sealed and protected from the storm that raged about us.  And yes, even today these same crosses are on both sides of every door wooden and seemingly untouched by the weather.

I know only two facts: I had a Crucifix on every door and I had no damage.  That was enough for me to believe in The protection of the Crucifix and Cross."]

10/09/07