Yesterday afternoon as I walked from the garage to the house, the deep purple irises were just starting to bloom, and I thought of the weather forecast and how the heavy downpour a few weeks ago had drowned the narcissus. Those irises should not be blooming for another two weeks, but the early warmth of March had propelled them as well as the poor narcissus.
It’s raw and wet, not the kind of weather we want to have at the end of April. Even the birds are huddling in the forsythia, now all green, the blooms gone. We wonder because we had been told that we’d have a warmer spring and summer than usual. Well, we ask, where on earth are the sunny 70s?
The sky’s so gray that even the trees at this time of morning take on a pall. The terrible twosome, the kittens born to an old feral mom, struggle to get into my lap, each one pushing off the other. Guess on this rainy morning it’s a good time to catch up on the piles and piles of papers waiting to be read. Rainy Saturdays are God’s way of telling me to pay attention to the mess and clean my house.
Prayer for the Day
Rain, a most precious gift from you, O Lord,
Pours into our lives as does your grace and peace;
Watering our faces as we go out from our homes.
We remember there are places on earth that need the rain.
We know that your rain falls on the just and unjust,
But we pray that it would fall more evenly.
In the name of the One who felt the rain,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Rain is grace, ran is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.
- John Updike, American novelist (1932-2009)
Rain showers my spirit and waters my soul.
- Emily Logan Decens, American writer
Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is God who has torn, and God will heal us.
God has struck down and God will bind us up.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord, God’s appearing is as sure as the dawn;
God will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.
Hosea 6: 1, 3