Let It Rain

Sunday, 15 Sep 2002

God is so good! Life truly does go on in ways we cannot even imagine it will when we're in the midst of what hurts most. I have seen such great evidence of God's healing power in others just this week. It amazes me once again!

How do I begin?...let me tell you about an experience I had, also while I was in Florida.

It was the day before Tropical Storm Eduard was to hit the coast of Florida. I figured I had one good day of sunshine left and I should use it wisely, so I canceled lunch with my friend and spent the day on the beach instead. I was sitting there in a beach chair, pulled up close enough to the waves so that they could roll under my chair from time to time without drenching me also. I had my CD player with me and I was listening to Michael W. Smith's Worship CD. It is fantastic! On that CD there is a song that he sings that says "Let it rain...open the floodgates of heaven...let it rain".

Most times, when it starts to rain, I run for cover, but not on this day. There were only small patches of storm clouds in the sky and I was in my bathing suit and it was warm, why run from a little water even if it turned into more than just a sprinkle? These storm clouds would pass across the sky sometimes off to the right of me, sometimes off to the left, and sometimes right over the top of me. When I ended up in the center of them, the rain would just flood down from heaven and drench me to the point that I could have been swimming in the ocean and not have gotten much wetter! What an experience! To sit there and look up into the rain, and enjoy it. To let it pass over me, and then feel the warmth of the sun as it came out to dry me off and restore me once again. That is what it felt like. A restoration.

As I watched the storm clouds blowing around me, I thought that it was like life. Sometimes we are on the fringes of those clouds and we just feel a sprinkle, sometimes they pass us completely by to the right or to the left and we feel nothing from them at all, and sometimes we are directly underneath them and it gets dark and cold and we wonder how long it will rain, and if we should go running. But if we sit there, they will eventually pass on by, and the sun will come out again and there is no need to go running. God will move them by us, we don't need to move at all if we are prepared.
If we are in our "bathing suit", clothed with His grace.
If we realize the darkness will not consume us, knowing the sun will shine again when God is ready.
If we can sit through the coolness of the storm for just awhile, waiting for God's warmth that will surely come when it is over.

To listen to that song, "let it rain...open the floodgates of heaven...let it rain" and be sitting there watching God at work doing that very thing is an experience that will stay with me a long time.

When I sat in the midst of those cloud bursts, it seemed like there was no sun shining anywhere, that the whole earth must be getting rained on as I was. I could not see very far because of the haze it brought with it, and surrounded me with. But when I sat and watched those storm clouds from a distance as they made their way out to sea, I could see that they were only a small patch of darkness that moved across the sky, sometimes blocking the sun and sometimes drenching the earth, but continually moving.

Just like our own storm clouds in our lives. We wonder how the rest of the world can go on sometimes, when we are in the middle of our own storms. Doesn't the whole world understand what we are going through? Don't they see the pain in our eyes? Don't they know how wet and cold and dreary it seems to us? But I think only if they pull their chairs up to the "waters edge" and sit and watch for awhile, can they even really see it.

The world keeps spinning and our lives keep moving and unless that cloud passes over us and drops some rain on our lives, we can be oblivious to what another might feel. Sometimes, we might see it, but we don't understand it enough to even comprehend what is happening. We see the rain from a distance, but it is not our rain, and it will move on, and we might not realize the devastation that was caused by those sitting underneath it.

Once you have felt the devastation that can be caused by a "storm cloud" I think it makes you pull up your chair to the "waters edge" more often and take notice. You recognize other's storms because you have had a similar one in your own life. You see the same pain in their eyes that you have felt, and for the first time, you can honestly say, "I know".

It's like when I went to the show the other day and saw the movie "Signs". There is a scene in that movie where Mel Gibson is standing beside the truck window as the man inside the truck tells him how very sorry he is to have fallen asleep at the wheel that night...I won't give away the movie but when the camera pans back to Mel Gibson, he gets this pained expression on his face that shows the emotions that can surface when you have lost someone. I just sat there watching that scene thinking to myself, "I know..."
Ten months ago I couldn't have said that. I had never sat at the "waters edge" to the extent that I have now, and I didn't understand how deep and how painful those emotion are.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this page. The amazing healing that I have seen in those around me who have lost loved ones. Four women in one week...you would think I do nothing but spend time with people who are grieving!! All four of these women have been drenched by a very dark cloud, it has rained all over them and they are drying out now. I can see it. I can hear it in their voices. I marvel at the smiles they wear, which are not the strained smiles that just come at the appropriate times, but smiles that come from a heart that is healing. A heart that is feeling the joy of living again. All four are in awe of the transformation that God has made in their lives. They are changed women, who now more fully trust in the God they serve.

Maybe I am able to see this and absorb this because I too am drying out from a good drenching. Maybe a year ago I would have not even stopped to notice the change, or maybe I could not have even seen it because I didn't understand. Maybe I would have watched Mel Gibson at the truck window and not paid so much attention to the emotions that surfaced during that discussion because it would not have meant so much to me, but now it does, and now I marvel at God's great healing power like never before.

I feel it in myself, but I can't see it. My sister and I were together recently and later she told me that I looked younger to her. That my eyes sparkled again. Others have told me that I seem lighter. The heaviness is not so evident. These are things that I can't see. I only know what I feel inside, a new joy. But with these other women, I am able to observe from the outside what God is doing on the inside and it is a beautiful thing to witness.

I have listened to some of their struggles over the why's, as I have wrestled with my own. I have sat with them and discussed what hurts most and some of the guilts and regrets that all grieving people must deal with, and now I sit with them and I see the aftermath of those storm clouds. I see the storm cloud moving on as the last of the sprinkles fall. This is not to say that it will not re-emerge in a moment and drench us to the bone, but the clouds become less frequent. We understand them better and are able to realize that they will not last. That they will pass on by, and the drenching will eventually stop. And, I think we realize some of the reason for the drenching, and in a strange way only those who have experienced them can understand how we are grateful for the storms. They have brought us to a place that makes us appreciate the Son/sun just that much more. We have been taught things that are difficult to learn, but so valuable. They have chilled us to the bone, but we know that God goes even deeper than to the bone, He heals to the marrow with His word.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
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I know a little about bone marrow because Leukemia hides itself deep in the marrow. There is a bone marrow test that can accurately identify if the patient has Leukemia. Phil had plenty of those tests as I looked on. He had no fear of them because he was given a medication that blanked them from his memory, as well as a pain medication that kept him comfortable. How thankful I was for that. He would ask as he was coming off of the medication, if it was over, that's how little he remembered.

Isn't it good to know that God knows us to the marrow? Isn't it good to know that God can heal us this deeply? I talked with these women and I saw it with my own eyes. I saw most of them when it hurt the most, and I see them now and they are transformed. They smile and they laugh and there are visible signs that God's promises are true. I know there are still tears, because I still have so many of my own, but it does get better, it really does.

There is a verse in Malachi 3:10 that says:

"Test me in this", says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."
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This verse talks about tithing, but tithing is an offering to God, and I think in the same way as offering our money to God, we offer Him our heart. I know He wants us to, and when we do open up to Him, He will open the floodgates of heaven and pour out blessings on us.
It's not always rain that falls from heaven.

That's what I see in these women. I see their hearts have opened to Him and His blessings are upon them. It is hard to explain how losing someone you dearly love, and the pain that follows, can bring about a joy in the Lord that is deeper than you have ever known before, but it is true. You don't have to like what has happened, but you come to a point where the fight in you is gone and the acceptance of what is becomes, and I think you either hate God for it or you love God more than you ever have before because you have come to a place of total trust and acceptance that He only wants what is best for you.

It took me about six months before all reserves of my own strength were gone. Six months before I handed it completely over to God and said "it's yours now". And as Pastor Dave said in his sermon last Wednesday night, September 11th, it is when our own strength is completely gone that God's strength has only just begun. (Please forgive my lose quote there Dave).

It is when we give it over to God, that we truly begin to see God working in our lives.

Philippians 3:8b
I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage,
so that I may have Christ and become one with him.
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When I had tried everything else, and discarded it as garbage, it was then that I truly found out what God's strength in me was all about.

Verse 3:9
I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith.
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My ability is worth zero, compared to God's ability. Christ alone saves me. When I start sinking and I start thinking of all the things that will destroy me, God reminds me to focus on Him and Him alone.

Proverbs 4:25
Let your eyes look straight ahead,
fix your gaze directly before you.
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It's like I look straight ahead and in the lower part of my vision I see the hurt and the pain, and if I look just up from that, I see God above it all saying look to Me. I am the way. I will get you through this. Don't get caught in all that garbage down there. Keep moving straight towards Me.
I Am your hope.

Verse 3:10
As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead!
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"Somehow"...I'm not sure how it works. I only know that it does. I only know that when I believe in what His word says and I follow it, it works. I experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead when I experience the mighty power that raises my heart back to life again when it would rather die.
I used to think this is it, I'm going down this time and I will never come back up again, this hurts way too much. But now I have gotten to know Christ enough to know that He will bring me back once again to live. We don't have to die to be dead emotionally. We can live the rest of our lives that way if we so choose, and to the world it will seem as if we are fine, but we will know. And I think others who have been there will know, because they will still see the pain that they once felt. It will be visible to those that have sat under that cloud. But to those that God has healed, it will also be evident, as it is in these women I have mentioned.

Ezra 9:8
"But now we have been given a brief moment of grace, for the Lord our God has allowed a few of us to survive as a remnant. He has given us security in this holy place.
Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us some relief from our slavery. For we were slaves, but in his unfailing love our God did not abandon us in our slavery."
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I don't want anyone to get caught in the slavery of grief. I don't want there just to be a small remnant of people who heal from loss. That frustrates me because the devil wins then. He is allowed to keep us captive on this earth until we go home. He is happy, and we are not, and God is not.

That is why I write, besides the fact that I love to do it, I write because if there is a shred of truth in what I write, if there is anything in what I write that can open an umbrella for someone who is sitting under that dark cloud getting drenched, it will be worth it. We are not called to live unhappy, defeated lives. We are called to be full of joy, and rejoice!!

If I can, if these women can, if others can, then we all can, if we will only look to the One who is greater than our greatest loss or struggle.

We sing a song at church that talks about God being our Rebuilder, Restorer, Redeemer, Rewarder.....and so many other things. I don't just sing those words, I KNOW those words. They are my life! Everyone one of them. He is doing it for me. He is doing it for these women I have talked about here. To see it, is to believe it, and it encourages me so very much!

Whatever your storm cloud in life, don't sit under there alone. There's no need to.
Let God brighten your eyes and grant you relief from your slavery!!

2 Peter 2:19b
-for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
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Living in His peace,
Diane