Rain
I love it. I mean really, really love it.
The smell, the way the grey sky makes everything look greener, the way a coming storm ushers me into a cozy chair with a cup of tea and a candle nearby, sends me flying to the windows to let that rain-laced air in… I love it.
A few weeks ago, we helped out with a retreat. Into a winter storm we drove, winding our way through slush and clouds and mountains.
My cabin was perfectly quirky and complete with its narrow spiral staircase, lofts and crannies tucked every which way, and an attic bedroom three stories up. That’s where I slept.
Way up in the atticsphere, I relished the rainfall that plodded and pattered into the wee small hours, when it eventually turned to snow. I felt a little sorry for the dwellers of the lower floors, who perhaps couldn’t hear the lullaby upon the roof in all its accoustic glory.
But I, tucked under the wonky sloping ceiling, relished it.
Grace is like rain, you know. Falling on the righteous and the wrong, renewing and refreshing.
“He will be like rain falling on a mown field,” Psalm 72:6 says, “like showers watering the earth.”
I wonder. When I’m close to him, ascending in prayer and noticing the things He is doing around me, giving thanks for gifts He’s given, my heart begins to soften, to be cultivated, to take note. To run to him more readily, surrender to him more willingly, to be engulfed in the shower of His grace.
And then there are other times, when I’ve distanced myself from Him, or have fallen into a dry routine and failed to commune with Him deeply. It’s like I’ve taken up residence in one of the lower levels of that mountain cabin: aware of Him, thankful for Him, but not tucked up, curled beneath the gentle falling of His grace, atuned to every drop falling, relishing.
Savoring.
Dwelling.
