It rained! By the time you read this, we’ll probably be back in “Sahara mode” again, but as I am writing now, it’s finally raining a wee bit, which means that I can stop screaming at the T.V. every time the Weather Channel is on.
Frankly, I was beginning to take this drought a bit personally. During these arid months, it sometimes rained just up the road from my house; it sometimes rained just down the road from my house; but it would not rain on my house. Skies darkened; thundered rolled; lightning flashed; my stormaphobic dog went nuts; but the clouds simply refused to open up over our property.
Time after time, rain clouds appeared and I tuned in to the Weather Channel, rejoicing to see rain-filled radar blobs barreling straight toward us.
“Ha! There’s no way it can miss us this time!” I’d say, eagerly anticipating the soothing patter of rain on my roof.
But every time, I watched the radar blobs mysteriously divide, dissipate and disappear. No rain. No soothing patters. It was a meteorological puzzlement so baffling I began to wildly speculate that perhaps aliens had taken galactic Saran Wrap and constructed a watertight bubble over this part of the county.
Talk about your dust bowls. I’m thankful my husband tends computers, not crops and livestock. If we had to grow all our own food, we might have had to do the “The Grapes of Wrath” thing, strap our worldly goods on top of our Toyota and head for greener pastures.
Fortunately, we do our hunting and gathering in well-stocked grocery stores and we’re blessed with a deep well that has thus far faithfully provided water.
But I was still hankering for a good ’ole rainy day and, in fact, became a bit obsessive about it.
No doubt, I was definitely feeling great empathetic angst for farmers and gardeners who were (and are) suffering from the drought.
But, to be painfully honest, it was also bugging me that people in other places were enjoying the hypnotic, steady drum of rain on their rooftops…but I wasn’t. Some folks with gravel driveways weren’t gagging on monstrous clouds of dust that made everything look like a bag of powdered donuts…but I was. Some lucky souls didn’t have to drag sprinklers around their yards all day to keep their plants and shrubs from being incinerated…but I did.
Bottom line–a big part of my frustration during this drought was a result of wanting someone else’s blessing–in this case, rain. Sounds like envy to me, which looks like sin to God.
I’ve lived long enough to know it’s futile and foolish to compare my blessings or hardships with anyone else’s. It drives us nuts to wonder why we’re afflicted when someone else isn’t; why we can’t catch a lucky break when others always seem to; why it rains there, but not here.
God has a goal for each life committed to His care: To make us more like Jesus Christ. To accomplish that, God creatively uses a pallet that includes all the colors of life: adversity and pleasure; hunger and abundance; heartache and happiness; tribulation and triumph; drought and rain.
Like a master painter, He alone knows how to mix the colors to create the unique masterpiece He wants each of us to become. Our part is to trust His love, embrace His goal for our lives, and thankfully accept His personal provision for us…rain or no rain.