rain reflections | December 2014
There waving its arms in the rearview stands my Windy Gap season He’s quick to resurface—particularly when it rains. North Carolina residency meant rain was routine, and yes the ropes course is still on and yes we celebrate how far we get before our socks are wet and yes the ropes fam laughed at their sun-loving sister and almost always, yes this firebird just wanted her sunshine back. 5am morning hikes through foot-deep puddles, robed in homemade trashbag-ponchos while the shivering never ever stopped. The droopy trees of Shady Hollow spilled rain hours and hours after the clouds stopped its coming. But somehow the downpour rush broke both the silence and the noise, a melody I’ll never mute. He hinted towards a six-months-prior silly prayer I’d forgotten about: Daddy, I want to like the rain.
to the rainshower He says,
“be a mighty downpour”.
so that everyone He has made
may know His work, He stops
them from their labor… saying,
‘listen to this, Job; stop and
consider God’s wonders’
| Job 37 |
And in the most peculiar winter weather Texas has probably ever seen, He’s forcing me to stop and consider His wonders. Snow day after late start after ice day after snow day and I’m definitely delighting in the sleep-in and the be-still. So He stops His people from their labor—to tell us a lazy Wednesday afternoon is no synonym to complacency, to shut us up into a Rest we can’t plan for, a spirit-revival not orchestrated by mortal hands. I’m thankful for snow day, slow days—forcing my plans awry, keeping me inside under cozy covers, happy amongst company I’ve been running too fast to enjoy. He hands rain-wrapped envelopes of gifts unfamiliar: things like spare time and quiet and a real-live nap and somewhat of an attention span. And nothing beats watching 10-year-olds call really anything “snow” and run wild and free through mud puddles. So I don’t care what authority my nametag claims, I refuse to let them stop or sit still or shut up. It’s the puddle-jumpers that inherit the whole Kingdom.It’s the ones midfield mid-flurry, tongues out to taste what He’s sent.
Slow down, My little one. Stop striving.
You don’t have to run. Play. Go dance in it!
I may forever be a sunshine-preferer, and sometimes I genuinely wish He’d keep this stuff up There. But He loves to remind Little Miss Sunshine that the water’s His too. And that no sun, separate from the Son, can maintain my joy or multiply it. So He sits me still beside my window, hearing rooftop raindrops break the silence and all that’s stubborn. And thanks to His rain, I stop—just enough to consider a wonder I kept looking past.
| photos courtesy of Emily Coffey |
thank You for slow-downs & sit-downs & rain rhythms outside my window. I sure do like the sound! and I really really like You.
chasing Someday 