The 'I' of the Storm
When a hurricane leveled his parents' house—and his band's office—Big Daddy Weave's Mike Weaver wondered what God might be trying to say to him in the midst of such loss and confusion.
by Michael Herman | posted 8/08/2005
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Mike Weaver has weathered some serious storms—literal and spiritual—in the past year. As leader of the band Big Daddy Weave, he wondered why new songs for their new album just "weren't coming to him." As the band prayed for direction, Hurricane Ivan leveled his parents' house, where Weaver was living at the time. But surprisingly, Ivan also brought some answers to those prayers, opening Weaver's eyes to God's power—and his own powerlessness. Weaver had been wrestling with personal struggles, but in the wake of Ivan, he gave them up to God, finding release from the bondage that had held him back for years. Weaver recently shared his journey—from that dark and stormy night to the bright side of hope and healing—in this interview.
Mike Weaver (2nd from left) and his band Big Daddy Weave are all smiles, despite some hurricane related struggles last year.
Trials and suffering will eventually affect everyone. For the Weaver family, it really struck last year, didn't it?
Mike Weaver Suffering is the weirdest thing. You start having a different set of eyes and ears because of how different the world is for you.
My parents' house was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan last year. It was turned into an aquarium, but it's really nothing compared to the physical pain many people go through every day. The house, our office, and everything inside that was lost were simply material things. Only some of those things can be replaced, but that's nothing compared to having something terrible done to your body. That's so much more harsh to accept and work through.
How did the hurricane affect you and the band?
Weaver Our story of loss and suffering goes back to when we were working on the record. We were on the road and there just wasn't any real fodder for new songs. So, as we began to pray about why the songs weren't coming to us, the hurricane came and trashed everything in our area. The only house that was truly affected badly was my folks' place. That's kind of our office, and that's where I was living at the time. When the hurricane stuck our community, it threw our lives completely out of order.
My folks moved in with [my brother] Jay and his wife, who were just in their first year of marriage and who just found out they were pregnant. So, that was an "interesting" situation for all of them. Our community was torn to pieces, but then we saw how people began to join together. In times like that, you see things come out of people that look a whole lot like Jesus. That's what we saw, and it was beautiful.
Did that time leave you with more understanding or confusion about your life and your career?
Weaver I don't understand why it takes situations like that one in order to bring the best out of us. I don't know why God uses trials to put the things in us that we were asking. The only thing I know about that is that in the middle of it, the perspective we had was different than when it all started.
Was the hurricane the biggest struggle of your life so far?
Weaver No. I went through pain this past year on a whole other level while the Lord was trying to remove some things in my personal life. He told me one day that the things I battle on the exterior are because of a root that is deep inside of me. He told me that root was the fear of being rejected. The Lord began to uproot that from me, saying, "If you'll allow me to, I'll remove it from you.."
I wondered why the Lord was asking my permission. My thought was, "Just get rid of it!" But he took me through a time of dealing with hurts from my past—dealing with things that were deep down inside. I was taken through the path of having to deal with faces and situations from the past that I had buried.
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