As I pause this evening to enjoy a light show from the heavens while I reflect on my week I see how the thunderstorm and life are similar. Soft rain falls everywhere, watering plants, animals and rivers alike. The hope is in my heart that the soft rains will continue through the night to soak everything with life bringing water. This shower is alive with the most amazing lightning and thunder. As I type these words, I have to squint my eyes as the lightning strikes. While beautiful, the lightening is dangerous with it comes fire, damage to infrastructure, sometimes death…all the while the rain softly falls.

In life we often overlook the many drops of goodness in view of the lightening bolts that fall on us. Now, those lightening bolts are totally out of our control and yet we worry and wait to see if one will hit us, when it hits someone close to us we offer condolences and help and are very glad it didn’t hit us. When after all the worrying it doesn’t hit us and the storm passes, we find a new worry and forget about the whole lightening issue…

Why is it necessary? The rain has fallen for eons upon eons and it will continue to fall when our nations have crumbled and our peoples are scattered. Life is much like the rain, you can chose to avoid it and hide from it…or you can go out and dance in it, find a puddle and jump in it! There are no guarantees of how big, how many or how long those raindrops will last, but today, I’m taking a walk in the rain.