Rain.

It is raining; and it has been raining almost non-stop since Thursday, I am currently finding it hard to fucus on my work. It is raining. I am mesmerized by the constant therapeutic falling of raindrops outside the window I am currently sitting behind. Like I said, the rain started on Thursday, and now it is Monday and the rain is still very much with us here in Nova Scotia.

Quite often I enjoy the rain, I enjoy its steady lulling sound, I enjoy being able to watch the drops ripple as they fall into puddles, I love being able to get absolutely drenched and then escape from the rain and the wet, inside a warm home with a brightly coloured Ecuadorian blanket around me--with a warm mug in hand. The steady rain makes me relax, stop and breathe. I don't feel rushed in the rain, I feel just...calm.

When it rains like it has been for the past few days, it brings on its own 'happenings', beauty but also disaster. Just a few moments ago, I was walking through campus with a friend of mine, when he was given the news that due to the heavy rainfall, one of his old mates from growing up hydroplaned on the highway this past Saturday and crashed. He did not survive. My friend, dazed and deep in thought brought up the thought that when things like this happen, when people die, or difficult things happen, in all of its difficulty and heartache, confusion, there is an element of clarity. Everything else in life just seems to loose its importance, and LIFE, the thing which we are all living, just seems so much more important than all of the little things...like stepping in a puddle and having wet socks for the rest of the day.

This rain, has renewed something important in my mind. Who knows what'll happen in a day, or even later on today for that matter. We dont have an invisible security cloak around us, guarding us from the bad happenings of this world we live in. We get wet in the rain, things happen to the people we love, or world gets rocked, demolished or shaken...so what then?

I feel as if a rain-walk is necessary. Being soaked to the bone brings a certain reality into check. Clarity. I feel like it is needed right now. This rain has brought joy, peace, but also sorrow and heartache. In Romans, Paul writes that 'all things work out for the good of those who love the Lord'. I just have to be reminded of this as I am sitting watching the rain today. If I have learned anything over this past year, it has been that even in the greyest days, there is still GOOD. God still is Good and Faithful. I have ben blessed. I have learned that the things which I happen to think are best for ME and MY life are not always what are best for me in the larger picture.

I find comfort in knowing that HE is still Faithful and Just, Unchanging, and Good. It is raining, I am being watered by the Spring of Life.

To quote my friend today 'It just gives you a perspective on what is really important in life'.

from a wet little feather.
a.