Rain For Days

I LOVE the smell of rain! It's probably at the top of my list, up there with "winter" and "Fall" and the freshness of "snow".... love it...

But it's raining today, and I can't help but feel: Blah....restless, stir crazy, home sick, tired...and I've heard landowners, farmers, and ranchers start asking for the rain to stop so that they can actually get some work done. And so it goes, "you want what you can't have". If it's dry, you want rain...until it does, of course. Then you'd like it to stop. I want it to stop, I'm not going to lie.

Instead, I choose to pretend I'm in Belieze, like I was in the summer of 2003. In Central America, those countries have very distinct wet and dry seasons. During the dry season, it DOES NOT rain, and in wet season, it rains without ceasing for days on end, or just several times during the day, each day. We were there that summer for the first rain of the wet season... It was so dry and hot. Water reserves were lacking and they worried for dry forests that could catch flame at the slightest spark! it was 8 pm, dark as night, and we were a mile or so out from camp in a small opening in the forest. Our guide smelled the rain coming. He told us it was going reach us in about 10 minutes, and if we wanted to leave, we'd better head out quickly... some went, most stayed. We thought he was crazy, but sure enough, the rain came... It was the hardest rain I have ever felt! It actually hurt, and by the time we headed back to camp, we were all but RUNNING! It was a joyous occassion indeed! Everyone celebrated! They had been waiting for their rain, and it was finally here! The mood had lifted. Every local was ecstatic. It was a wonderful event to witness (and feel as we were soaked to the bones with no chance of drying off any time soon).

So today, I will celebrate the coming of the rain. I will be joyful and laugh while I lift my face towards Heaven. I will praise God for his never-ending provisions. I will give thanks for this VERY wet season!