Hey loves,
So I’ve had this idea on my heart for a bit, but have been fully immersed in the consuming, chaotic, rewarding, exhausting, exciting life that is #parenthood. It’s taken me this long to have a hot second when 1) both babes are sleeping (and as I wrote that last sentence, my youngest woke up. But for now she’s going to help me write), and 2) no other chores are super pressing (I don’t know about you, but I just can’t stand a dirty kitchen. I’ve GOT TO clean my kitchen most days or I feel a little crazy).
Here in the Valley, we’ve been having a lot of rain this season. My neighbors and I chat at the edge of our lawns to something of a predictable script:
“More rain this week!”“Sure is making the grass grow; I had to mow twice this past week alone!”“Mushrooms everywhere!”
And despite the understandable bit o’grumble about the soggy state of our yards, most everyone also recognizes that the rain is helpful, as our climate can almost always use more rain for crops.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
With all of this rain, and the thunderstorms that have been coming with it, I’ve been reminded of a couple lines from some of my favorite Christian songs (I’ll leave links below so you can hear it, too): “Grace like rain pours down on me…by Todd Agnew/I will praise you in this storm…by Casting Crowns.”
Growing up, whenever I had heard the line of “praise in the midst of the storm” or some variation thereof, I’d thought of the image of Job from the Bible that I’d constructed in my brain (right or wrong): this totally religious man who was so super dedicated to God that no matter how crummy his life got, he was never tempted to talk smack about Him. How pious! How dedicated! How self-sacrificing! How…hard to emulate!
But the other day, as I was pulling weeds in our garden with Lil Man, I came to a more fluid understanding of this whole “praise while the rain (et cetera) hits the fan” thing.
As Lil Man and I walked into our fenced-off garden (to keep well-meaning little fingers and puppy noses away from our growing fruits and veggies), I was shocked by how much our crops had grown in the past few days. SHOCKED, I tell you! Our tomato plants easily tripled in height and width, our berry bushes had new little fruit buds just waiting to grow and ripen, and the strawberry plants took to merrily crawling across the ground.
Photo by Lukas on Pexels.com
I realized then that all of the rain, all of the storms, all of the heat we’d been having had created the perfect environment for GROWTH.
Just like the symbolic storms of our life.
Now, at the same time, the weeds in the garden had also matured and taken over quite a bit of space. Both the wanted plants and the unwanted plants, when experiencing the same conditions, became larger, heartier, and harder to ignore. If left on their own, they would take over the garden and choke out the plants that I had intentionally planted, the ones I want to cultivate and harvest fruits from.
When we are faced with big, uncomfortable challenges, we are often put into an undeniable position to change ourselves, our environment, or our lives. We face our own truths, be they wanted or unwanted, and are given the opportunity to do something with this new knowledge. We are given the opportunity to become prolific, to stretch and grow! At the same time, those things that we don’t want may become more noticeable, may demand more attention and require weeding.
And it is in this opportunity that we can be thankful and full of praise! To be given the tools for deeper self-understanding, the catalyst for greater depth of our spirituality, the space to grow into more than we were before.
At the risk of waxing dramatic over here, it’s in the crucible of our life’s storms that we have the best environment for change; our spaces and ourselves become more malleable so that we can be better shaped in the image of the Ideal…if we take the opportunity to keep our garden growing that way.
In my personal beliefs, I don’t think that it’s up to God to change us all by Himself (because of that whole free-will thing). BUT I do believe that He gives us tools, opportunities, and chances where we can, by communing with Him and being intentional in our lives and our pursuit of Him, grow into more than we were before. One step at a time, cultivating ourselves closer to heaven.
As I move forward in this season of weather and parenting, I’m going to do my best to keep this lesson in the forefront of my mind. For the nights when Baby Girl just won’t sleep; for the days when Lil Man is pushing his boundaries more than I think I can handle; for all the little things that add up to feeling like you’re treading water (or barely staying afloat) in life. I will remember that the rain results in better crops, and I will praise You in this storm.
God bless, y’all!
Praise You In This Storm–Casting Crowns
Grace Like Rain–Todd Agnew
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