God's healing rains

On a day with a blustery, depressing beginning it was amazing to see how emotions and nature were transformed once again by God's grace.

It all began with a windy, overcast and depressing drive into town where I didn't know if I had ever seen dust billowing out from behind the vehicle from our dry dirt roads like it did this morning.

Once at school, there was a solemn attitude as many of our junior high kids were dressed up to go to a funeral for a friend of theirs in the neighboring town who had been killed in a car wreck just Saturday.
Seeing those kids and knowing they were preparing to deal with a heartbreaking part of life was a bitter reminder of how cruel this earth can be at times...and the weather seemed to fit perfectly.

After they returned from the funeral, the sprinkles started. Just one here and there, but there was hope. Then the rain began...and ended...and began...and continued for over 2 hours

It wasn't a downpour, but it was one of those refreshing rains. As I arrived to help serve the meal at youth group, I saw those same kids, that dealt with one of the hardest moments in life, running around playing football in the rain. Everyone in town was loving the moisture and just enjoying the freshness it seemed to bring.
I traveled home and thanked God for the moisture and the stark change in scenery from the drive this morning. There were still reminders of the serious drought we are in. But I take pride in the character of people in western Kansas.

 We might look a bit like this corn field. We might be worse for wear at times, but we still hang on and try to tough it out. This corn won't be harvested, but it did as much as it could. This rain may not have amounted to much more than 20 hundredths, but it served its purpose. It gave us a fresh outlook and washed away some of the sadness to remind us that God is good and we can make it to another day!