And the Rain Comes Down...

The only planting I accomplished Saturday!

It always amazes me how the weekend can fill me up with new ideas for writing! Saturday we had plans to work in our yard. We started our day by going to our daughter's soccer game and then went to the store to buy the things we needed to begin shaping our gardens for the spring (tomorrow's the first day of spring!).  No sooner had we gotten back and I began picking up branches out of the yard with the kids, that it started sprinkling. Stubbornly, I sent the kids inside and began planting one of the shrubs I had bought. It began to hail. I figured it was a day for indoor projects.
Isn't that so much like our real lives? Sometimes, it starts sprinkling and sometimes we get stubborn even though we see the signs that God wants us going in a different direction. And sometimes, God decides to get our attention even if it hurts, and He sends the hail. We must always keep in mind that God knows what He's doing, even if we don't. I love the rain and how God can cleanse all the grass, plants and trees with that rain, giving them color and life and water. This is how the figurative rain in our lives work. After it is over we find that we have been purified and are refreshed with Everlasting Water flowing through us. We must hold strong in faith. One of my favorite songs is Stand in the Rain, by Superchick, which expresses this exact idea. We must stand in faith through the rainstorms and hailstorms in our lives.
Oswald Chambers gives us a beautiful picture of what this type of faith is like:

A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles' wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking and not fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). --My Utmost for His Highest, March 19

Our plans are so unlike God's plans. We must give up what we want to accomplish (working in the yard) and conform our will to God's will (coming inside and going through boxes of hand-me-down clothes). We may not know why, but if we know our God, we know that His plans are always better than ours.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." --Jeremiah 29:11

So pack that umbrella with you today, dear sister, and be ready to respond in faith when those storms come!