Day 43 - April Showers

Day 43 - I am so happy to see something like this on my car windows rather than the white frozen stuff.  There are so many sayings about rain.  There is the April showers bring May flowers. Or, Dolly Parton said, "If you want to see a rainbow you have to put up with some rain".  "Into each life some rain must fall", was said by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Denzel Washington said "You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too".  All wise statements and it helps see the rain as a good thing even when there is no sunshine to go with the drops.

I am happy to see these drops, I love the sound of rain hitting the window, and absolutely love the sound of thunder rolling in the distance. I even enjoy the lightning lighting up the sky at night.  Note I enjoy all this most when it is at a distance away.  We all know that we need rain and without it we wouldn't have the beautiful flowers and life that it brings.

I remember as a kid we loved playing in the rain.  We would run and let it drench us as we played without a care in the world.  We really loved it with the area ditches would fill up with the water and we could play in it.  We didn't worry about getting dirty or getting hurt.  Heck we would pull an occasional leach off of ourselves afterward but we always had fun.

As I looked out my car window through the drops of rain on this morning I noticed how the things in the distance kind of blur.  I realize that so many times we allow the rain that falls to blur what is important in life.  We allow the rain to dampen our happiness and instead of embracing it for all the good things it brings we instead sit and pity ourselves because it isn't what we wanted.

Sometimes I think we ask for something and in our hearts we really believe that is what we need.  The plan that is our life may lead us entirely in a different direction.  We can't see the big picture because we aren't looking past the raindrops in our life, instead we are trying to look through them.  As we sit and worry about what we missed we are many times missing out on opportunities that are still right in front of us because they don't look exactly like what we wished for.

I challenge us all to try to make out what that blurred picture ahead is.  Try to see the sunshine in the drops of rain that fall into our lives.  If you have been praying for one thing try to see that maybe it will be delivered to you in many small packages instead of all at once.  Realize that although the life you have may not look exactly like the one you dreamed of, it may still be a work in process.  Maybe it is something that you wanted but some assembly is required and you have to get your tools of life out to help put it together.

My parents always said that if it comes easy, it probably isn't worth as much as those things that you had to really work for.  So make sure that your life is something worth working for and make it worth the effort.

Into all of our lives some rain will fall.  I hope that each of us take the time to dance in it and remember what it is like to enjoy life.  Put your worries aside for a moment and be grateful for those drops of rain and the beauty it will bring behind it.