Sometimes I get a little panicked that it will never rain again. I grew up in California– a land of drought and water use awareness. As a kid I remember going to school assemblies devoted to talking about turning off the water while you brushed your teeth and not running the shower too long. Water was a limited resource and you never knew when it was going to run out.
That idea makes a big impact on a kid. I always had a fear about droughts the way other people might fear tornadoes or hurricane season. It also made rain feel like a precious gift. When it would rain, I would spend the day soaking it up. My favorite thing to do was put an umbrella down in the front yard and curl up underneath it just to hear the rain over my head and feel protected from it. Rain was a gift from God and only he could give it. While I could try and ration it and protect it and store it away, I couldn’t make it come no matter how hard I tried.
Photos by Rebecca Tredway Photography
I never remember thunderstorms in California. My first real experience watching a storm roll across the sky came our first summer in Nebraska when I was 11. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once. Here it was again– a gift from God, but now I heard his booming voice and saw his finger etching light across the sky. And now I learned about flooding– when this gift overwhelms creeks and rivers and wipes out crops.
My parents were both children of farmers and this always informed their view of the weather. I remember praying once that it would stop raining because I wanted to go to the pool. My dad gently reminded me that God also must consider the needs of farmers desperately waiting for the rain to water their crops so they could provide for their families and keep food on the table for all of us, too. Rain was never just rain, never just an annoyance, never just a weather event.
This summer has been a wet one in Nebraska. Rain has refused the boundaries we put up for it and has come into basements and flooded streets all across my city. And it just keeps coming. As I’m writing, I see it sprinkling down on the back deck and I imagine my little ones have been forced indoors for Vacation Bible School activities.
As the rain continues to come, I see the awesomeness of a God who cannot be contained. Sometimes it takes the wildness of a thunderstorm to remind me of the greatness of God. My little problems can quickly be put in perspective with the loud call of the tornado siren and a rush of sleepy little bodies down the basement stairs. My God is powerful and beautiful and he has created a way to nourish the land and provide us food that never even pretends to be under our control. Give us this day our daily bread– a request made to a God who waters the seeds and sends the sun on the sprouts.
But while I see God in the thunder, the lightening, the rain swollen rivers, I know that is not the only place he exists.
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
. . . To finish reading, click over to Her View From Home. . .