Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Thought #38

The works of his hands are faithful and
just;
all his precepts are trustworthy;
they are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and
uprightness.
- Psalm 111: 7 & 8

It's one of those rainy days when you just spend the whole day inside.  Those days always used to bug me when I was a kid.  I was the rambunctious type.  The child that needed to be duct taped into his car seat because he'd always magically climb out.  A regular old little Houdini.  The type that when sentenced to his room for a "time out" would jump out the window, using the bulked for a landing pad and then would proceed to knock on the front door until he was let back in.  Not sure my parents knew what they were signed up for when I was born.

I think today I cherish rainy days more than despise them.  There's something about the wet that gives me comfort.  Something that re-assures me of the Old Man way up in the sky.  Of His love.  Of His care.  Of all that He is for He truly is God, the Alpha & Omega who was and is and is to come.  

That's what they taught me in Sunday School and to this day I tend to believe it.  It's not some belief based on nostalgia or any picture perfect childhood memory.  It's a belief supported by wet days because then heaven becomes earth and that's all there is.  Heaven's gentle steady deluge consuming all in its path.

So on rainy days I live among heaven.  I walk wet streets.  I am drenched.  And I notice that I'm a part of something so must more than myself.  It's more apparent to me.  God's touch is tangible.  His love and care become real to me rather than mere Bible stories.  Heaven becomes earth for a few wet moments.

The rain comes out of no where to me.  Especially since I grew up in New England.  The old quote for us New Englanders is, "If you don't like the weather, then wait a minute."  It's true.  The skies can change rapidly here.  One moment it's bright and sunny, the next it's depressingly dreary.

I've definitely come to like the rain though.  It's God's faithfulness, you know?

There's this cemetery just over the Wareham line that seems to hold funerals near weekly.  And it's only raining on those sad days.  The combination of rain and death makes me smile for some odd reason.  It's not some psychotic creepy reason.  It just seems like God empathizes with the family of the deceased.  Not that it's the cliche God's crying sort of empathy, but the personal reminder that God is here with us forever and ever.  His faithfulness.  His just response to any who mourn or are afflicted.  And His drip for drop million-and-one reasons for us to know all His precepts are trustworthy.  A tap dancing on tin roof reminder of His character.

This is God in the rain: every rain drop you feel falling, hit your head and make it's river-way down your body till it hits the ground; or any drop you drink turning your head to the clouds and opening your mouth wide like you're discovering rain again for the first time; or any heavenly drop you see stream in slow motion right before your eyes; it's one more reason why this whole thing is real.  Why this going to church is not for nothing.  Why this trying so hard to believe in what we cannot see is a response to all we've truly beheld before.  (Maybe you just can't remember what you beheld, but what you beheld some time ago in your heart is falling right before you.  Look.) 

Can't you see the rain?

Can't you feel the wet?

Can't you milk each moment for all its worth?

Now can't you experience heaven on a rainy day?

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