Life Giving Rain

These were my thoughts during mid September when the wildfires in the Western states were at their worst and we'd had almost 2 weeks of terrible, toxic smoke in my town. Rain had finally come, and this was what came to my heart and mind...

Drip. Drip. Drip. Rain splatters outside my window. It feels like the happy, contented dribble down your chin after gulping water on a hot, thirsty day. For almost two weeks there's been a thick, gagging smoke in my area due to ravenous wildfires. The brown and sickly-yellow haze came and began to squeeze the life from us even as the fires themselves ravaged nearby towns, razing them to the ground in their fury. We stumbled and gasped, blinking back tears from stinging eyes, stinging hearts.

The fires have brought with them a heaviness of spirit too. Oppressive and choking, suffocating the tiny oxygen of hope, the little drops of joy, the vainly gripped peace. 

I told my Dad today how much I longed to see blue skies. I've felt stifled. And not just from the fires. They were just the visible symbol of the state of my soul. I think many of you have felt it too. The virus, the lock-downs, the natural disasters,  the politics, the economy, the social unrest, the confusion, the hurt, the anger, the disappointment. 

Like an ever-thickening, poisonous cloud of toxic smoke in our souls. We've ignored it, powered through it, even submitted to it and raged against it. But, I think in our most private spaces, we've begged and whined and whimpered for just a tiny bit of respite; for a mere glimpse of some clear reprieve. 

But all we hear is silence. The deadly, eerie, ugly, mocking stillness. The ashy cloud descending around us and filling our lungs with a burning response that rescue will not come.

But then...

A flash of light splits the pitch dark of the night sky and a booming shout thunders through the darkness. And then you hear it. Soft and tentative at first. But then building to a grand crescendo, a victorious symphony that declares that life will not be stopped. 

Rain.

Life giving water tearing the death grip around your soul to ribbons. Subduing the unquenchable with the unstoppable. 

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”(John 4:13 NIV). Now, even though Jesus was talking about salvation in the context of this quote, the overarching truth is that the sweet "water" of the presence of Jesus can still sweep away the thick clouds on our souls, just as the rain swept away the thick clouds of smoke in my city. He can not only save us, He can refresh and restore us. That's one of the (many) things about Jesus that I love. He's not just powerful, he's also loving. Even in the middle of hard, painful, destructive circumstances he brings us himself -- living water -- to quench our thirsty souls and to help us walk through any situation, no matter how heartbreaking and difficult. He doesn't always pull us out of every trial. He didn't even do that for himself, even though he could have. No. But he comes and walks with empathy and brings the refreshing cleansing showers and wipes the tears from our eyes. Then he points to the blue sky and sunshine that he brings as our living hope. He is our source, and the life giving rain our souls so desperately need.