The rain is falling. Finally. After waiting all year for a chance at the sound of falling rain it is here. I opened the door in order to listen to it better. The air is clean and clear. Everything is getting wet.
I pause to pray for all those southern California drivers who don’t normally have to deal with slick roads. Roads that are extra slick with the months of dirt and oil that have gathered on the freeways when it is dry. May God provide them with some common sense while they drive.
I’m not sure what is so reassuring about the sound of rain. Here it brings mudslides and flooding as well as many accidents. But I grew up with rain on a regular basis. I laid awake many nights in Illinois listening to the glass shaking in the window while the thunder boomed and the lightening flashed behind my curtain.
When I moved to New Mexico rain became more rare and precious. The smell was the big thing. It woke up the ground and grass turned green in a matter of hours. Flowers bloomed. Creatures stirred, lapping up the fresh water. It smelled like freshly turned earth in Missouri. It smelled like cornfields in Kansas. It smelled like…rain.
Here in Orange County the rain is even more rare. In the last few years of drought rain has only poured down a handful of times. Short showers were more likely or heavy dews. Sometimes we had drizzle so light it was more like mist.
So a blessing of this magnitude is worth a moment of pause. Those stuck in traffic for more than an hour and more like two or three may beg to differ. But the air is cleaned. The smog is gone for a few days or hours. It is safe to breathe deeply.
So I am pausing. I am stopping in my search for work and a way to earn money for a few minutes today. I am thanking God for his blessings and his gift of rain to us here. I am praying for safety to all those trying to drive and work in this rain. And I am asking for God to help the leaks to stay to a minimum this day.
This day I am not sure which way to turn. This day I am asking God to show me his purpose for my life. This day I am asking God to keep my family and bring healing in our midst. This day. God I want to honor you and bring glory to your name. This day.
This Day by Point of Grace
James 1: 5-8 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
I Timothy 6:17-19 Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.
