Rainy Season

Some people find rain dreary, annoying, or depressing. Others think of the rain as a chance to go play in it, curl up and read a good book, or lounge around watching a movie. Regardless of what you think or do, the rain still falls.

Rain is one of my favorite weather patterns. It is always different but always has the same purpose. It rains to sustain life systems all around us (including us). Without rain we would have no plants. Without plants our animals die. If our plants and animals die, we die. See, doesn't rain seem so much better now?! Seriously though, God has shown me so much through the rain.

Things I have learned through the rain:
1. God loves His creation.
God has a reason for us being here. If He did not want us here He would take us out. Thus no more need for rain. He allows it to continue raining so we can continue living. He loves us enough to send the rain.

2. God is faithful.
Being in the south it gets super hot during the summer. That heat really doesn't bother me, not sure why God made me where I can endure heat but He did and I thoroughly enjoy not being miserable during the summer. One summer a friend and I were working at Discovery Cove in Orlando with a Christian summer project. It was super humid and hot and well ... we thought we might stroke out when we took the garbage to the back lot. So we sat down for a little rest. We both agreed we wished it would rain. So one of us suggested we pray. We looked at each other, bowed our heads and closed our eyes. Before I could even utter "Father, please..." it started pouring rain. God is faithful. He knows what His children want and need before we ever ask. He just wants us to ask. When we did it poured.

3. God loves the lost and wants to show Himself to them.
A friend of mine, who a few of us had been sharing with, was on her way to work with a relative. It started raining outside on her way to work. She told the relative in the passenger seat that she was going to pray for God to stop the rain long enough for them to go inside. She prayed. When they arrived at their office building it stopped raining. After they walked inside the rain started up again. God graciously answered my friends prayer and showed her that He has her best interest at heart.

4. God cries with us.
(Now this is not necessarily a biblical truth so do not quote me on this as anything more than my personal opinion.) To me it seems as if every funeral I am at or every time someone I know passes away it rains. It is almost as if God is crying with me and mourning with me. That very rain also comforts me and reminds me that God loves me and that He is faithful and that He loves the lost. He weeps over lost souls. He rejoices over the angels He gains when true followers pass on to be with Him. Yet, though He rejoices He knows we here on earth do not fully grasp the passing on to eternal life. In my experience (which is completely different than everyone elses .. I completely get that) He makes it rain. He comforts me through the rain and reminds me He is alive and real.

There have been many times when I have been driving and have begun praying and as I pray it rains. The longer I pray the more it rains. When I stop praying, it stops raining. There have been times I have prayed for rain and the rain has fallen. In the past year I have prayed in the rain, prayed for the rain, and happily walked through the rain with no umbrella. This has probably been the rainiest season of my life in all the best ways. Yet, as I write this and stop to think about my own experience with rain I wonder if it is raining for others in a completely different light. God shows His children things in different ways. Mine happen to come in the form of "rain drops fallin' on my head..." (yes, that song is now stuck in your head).

One of the most amazing things about rain is that it can be a perfectly cloudless sky and rain can be pouring down. Sometimes we do not see the rain coming. Rain makes things grow. If you are a child of God, He wants you to grow so He will give you many rainy seasons, not because rain is a punishment but because He loves you and cares for your holiness. When we go through hardships and trials we are stripped bare and refined. He sets us on fire to see what remains. He makes us holy, as He is holy. Rain is a good thing, a very very good thing.