“He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. In his days the righteous will flourish; prosperity will abound till the moon is no more.” Psalm 72:5-7

Today, thanks to Hurricane Bonnie, (and Alex last week), we welcome more rain. I’ve always enjoyed rain, but not the cold kind. I love the smell of summer rain espeially, when it mixes with the dry, dusty air and smells of earth. The smell of the asphault and dirt absorbing the moisture sings a story of relief and refreshment. Renewed fresh again. A cleansing.

I also love the feel of rain. One summer years ago, we spent a week in the rain camping. We dodged it the best we could, wore visors to keep the rain from pelting our eyes, and desperately tried to stay out of the rain. But we had a list of things that had to get done, so we finally gave up and knew we were just going to have to get wet. And a sweetness settled in. We surrendered. The rain had more power than we did. And somewhere in the course of that week, we learned to appreciate it. We realized how much cooler we were with the rain than without it. We had to restructure our expectation or we would have missed it–the blessing of looking at a situation differently and appreciating it instead of complaining. The blessing of the cool when the alternative would have been scorching heat. The blessing of smiling together and having fun and laughing about looking like drowned rats. When the week was over, I don’t think any of us would have done one thing differently. We didn’t miss the blessing. He is so like the rain that showers us with blessing. May we not miss a single one.