I sit moving slowly front to back in white rocker as I study. The summer heat tolerable some afternoons on my east facing porch. A slight breeze drifts by hinting at more to follow.
I’ve been praying for another storm since morning.
Technology interrupts my focus as the weather alert app alarms. A needed technology living in tornado prone Alabama. A few minutes later the warning siren down the road shrieks. Distant thunder rumbles as trees bend will to wind and leaves dance across sky floating to the ground.
Still I remain watching grey clouds permeate blue sky.
Have you ever felt the air as a storm moves in? Temperature drops and you sense a change. The anticipation almost like that of an orchestra warming up before a symphony.
Some storms roar through unexpected, unwanted, and we hold on for dear life. Then others we pray for and anticipate with almost excitement. We know the chaos of noise is only a warm up for the beautiful symphony that awaits. Beautiful, life giving rain to feed a parched ground weary from summer heat.
We all want life to be safe and comfortable, but storms will find us. Some will be like the ones that rip through unwanted and others will be like this one I watched from my porch as it moved in bringing much needed relief from summer. Five afternoons in a row last week summer rainstorms brought rain. Much needed after so many weeks without.
I used to hate rain. I wanted sunshine all the time. The rain always so depressing.
Now I pray for both. We need the sunshine to turn our face to our Creator. But we also need the rain to grow our roots deep and give us life.
I find myself anticipating the rain. The kind that slowly moves in as we wait watching. And just as the ordered chaos of the orchestra warming up brings anticipation of the beautiful symphony that waits so do the rainstorms we sense on the horizon.
Maybe when we pray for these rainstorms that bring such relief we also prepare ourselves for the unexpected ones. Maybe in learning to be thankful for these our roots grow deep to hold us through the storms that rip through life without notice and leave us asking why.