Green and growing

It has been raining for three whole days. The sky is gray. The ground is squishy and covered in mud. But today on my drive to work I noticed something. Even though the sky is dark and gray and dreary as ever, even though the fog and steam bring an eerie presence to every landscape, somehow the world around the sadness seems brighter. After 3 days, the grass is greener than I’ve seen it all year. The crape myrtles are blooming in vibrant and beautiful pinks and whites and lavenders. The annuals are happy and healthy, the cotton is beginning to blossom; everything that has waited through the heat and the drought all summer has somehow managed to capture every nourishing drop of this monsoon and use it for good. In fact, it’s the best “good” I’ve seen all summer.

When it rains like this it’s not uncommon that I begin to equate the rain with sadness. I begin to remember challenges and pain and sadness. I think of those droughts: times when I kept waiting and waiting and hoping for things to turn around and all that happened was something that, at the time, just seemed even worse. But today I realize that each of those times taught me something. Each of those challenges encouraged me to grow. Every heartache made me appreciate and be grateful for all I have. But without those experiences, without those dreary days of rain, I would never have grown, never have learned… I would just be sitting in a drought, drying up and waiting.

The truth is we need rain in our lives. And we all hate to admit it; just ask any child who ever missed out on a day at the pool because it rained. But we as humans need the storms of life so that we too can grow and blossom. And while the storms are raging, our struggles seem so much greater than any good that could come from them. But if we can remember that we need the storms, not that we just need to get through them but we need them, then when the time is right we will be ready to endure the rain and learn to use it—grow from it and do things greater than ourselves. There is purpose in everything that happens. There is good in every storm. And if we can keep from drying out while we're waiting, when the storm comes we’ll see the good, and we’ll be better, greener, for it.