When it Rains it Pours ... Sometimes...

If you happen to live in Surprise, we had a surprise storm this afternoon. It was HUGE! The trees were whipping around as if some unseen gardener was trying to yank them out of the ground like they were weeds, the drops were the size of quarters, and the thunder was loud enough to make a grown woman jump! It was impressive. It was unexpected. Looking out the window that faces the north side of town, I wondered just how wet I was going to get in a few minutes when I had to leave for skit practice and decided that I should leave a little earlier than normal. (After all people in Arizona often are rain driving challenged and this was a lot of rain!) So I grabbed my keys and headed out. The storm was just as impressive from inside my car. The sound of the drops pounding on my car overpowered the music that had been crystal clear when I was in the garage, the street was filled with rivers of racing water, and the trees lining both sides of my street were swaying back and forth as the wind enticed them to dance. Then I got to Waddell and Bullard, which is a mere three fourths of a mile away from my house. Sitting at the light, I realized that the air around me was rather quiet, the drops a mere drizzle, and the sky blue with a few white clouds. It was bizzare. I turned in disbelief to look down the street to the area of my house, only to find that there was a huge ... isolated ... dark cloud cell that was dumping an obviously large amount of rain right over my neighborhood. With every eighth of a mile driven the skies cleared, the rain faded, and the wind calmed. Pretty soon it was if it had never even sprinkled. It was strange, and I couldn't help but see the correlation to our lives.

You see, all I could see was the storm that was all around me. I assumed that it was far reaching, and even ajusted my schedule to accomodate it. How many times do we find ourselves in a life storm that feels all-surrounding, all-devestating, and all-consuming ... feelings that are confirmed by all the visual evidence aroud us? How many times do we focus on the severity of the storm? How many times do we simply believe what we see? If you are anything like me ... often. Sometimes though, what appears to be a major life storm, is simple an isolated downpour. A simple short-lived moment ... maybe an intense short-lived moment... but a short-lived moment none the less. Sometimes we take on the role of the weatherman ... trying to identify and define the weather ... instead of simply resting in the assurances and promises of the one who controls the storms. In doing so, we tend to make the storm more powerful than it really is.

So, if you missed this storm ... and it was actually pretty small ... I am sure there is another one right one the horizon. When it gets here ... let's just enjoy the rain! The Lord has everything in control.

Lisa