Summer Rain

Beloved:  

    It’s high noon by the clock and dark as night out my office window.  It rained so hard my Honda Fit bobbed as much as drove to the airport this morning.  Carl left to teach in Seoul for a month.  I’m meeting him there in two weeks for my vacation.  When I return it will be time to help Ben pack for his study abroad year in Taipei.  No time flies like the summertime, and this year has been a near perfect balance of sunshine and rain on everything growing at my place.  Even the chickens are thriving ~ all those extra worms maybe.

    As a kid I thought summer rain meant the day was ruined.  We might get to go to the library, but otherwise it was indoors only - no riding our bikes to Thornton Park or playing in the woods.  When I was eleven or twelve, my mom might drop me off at the library if I found a friend to go too.  I was literally grown up and gardening before I understood Matthew 5:45:

“. . . . . so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven;
for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

   I was grown up and gardening before I understood that I’m supposed to see God blessing the bullies ~ not chastening the faithful.  Biblical writers didn’t know a world with too much rain.  Rain is life-giving, life-restoring.  “In Israel every drop of water is precious” is a saying still repeated in Israel.  Their most advanced technology is dedicated to catching, moving and reusing rainwater.  

   “Has anyone written the book, When Good Things Happen to Bad People?” I wondered.  Yes, as it turns out.  The Amazon description calls it an irreverent, fast-paced, fact-filled compendium of fifty case studies of notorious villains from Attila the Hun to Dick Cheney.  Hmm, not exactly the theological reflection I had in mind.  Maybe because it isn’t complicated to understand, only to believe and practice.

   Jesus loves the little children . . . . . .all the children of the world . . . .

   We know it.  We’ve always known it.  Before we knew lots of other things, we knew that.  And yet it is so hard to know on dark and rainy days, days when we feel confined and overwhelmed at the same time, days we want to sleep and sleep and sleep.  I pray this gorgeously green and sparkling day finds you positively dripping with new life!

~ peace and prayers,
pastor annette