Redefining Rain

Finally...rain is falling on the parched dry land I've called home for nearly the past decade. North Texas is experiencing a record-breaking drought and the 2+ inches of steady soaking we are receiving today is an answer to some prayers. By no means will it singularly cure the drought, refill the reservoirs or lift the land-locked boats slips in the area lakes, but...it is a start.

As the rain falls, I wonder about the implications. The disparate contrast of record dry days kicks me into a reflective state. How necessary water is for our existence. As living creatures we're good for about three days without it and then we're done! How truly dependent we are. Dependent on a Provider far greater than ourselves and when drought comes, isn't it convincing that we can't create anything to remedy the dryness ourselves? There are not enough bottles of water to heal the distress. Only One can provide what we need.

Over 1" has fallen outside my window this morning...and I find myself ironically drafted into this dry season. Life as I've known it for nearly 32 years has effectively dried up. The title, the position, the business card, the phone number, the email address,  the (office) space to call my own...evaporated. Only traces of it remain like footprints left when soil is damp. Things of that life increasingly seem like the miles of fallow shoreline around Lake Ray Hubbard. It was with the subtlety of weeks upon weeks of glorious sun-drenched days...that circumstances came in quietly, against preference, at the volition of others and a cost to many. Dry...parched...cracked...thirsty...I wait...for rain to fall.

Dry seasons are desperate. We want to continue on as we did when the reservoirs were full and there was plenty to go around. In fact, we could even waste a little here and there and nobody seemed to care. But droughts call for restrictions and we soon discover every little drop matters. So...today the rain falls but the drought isn't over. Perhaps more rain will come?

Though desperate these drought-filled days are, there is glorious anticipation that the rains will come. Boat docks will float again and lawns will grow lush and green and all those "Stage 3 Water Restriction" signs will find their way back into municipal storage once more. But when those anticipated days come, things won't be like they used to be. You can't live through a drought and ever see rain the same again.

Yes...I hear the rain falling and it causes me to dream. But not of a time before the drought for that time is all too distant and behind me now. No...I dream of a time to come. A time when the land is soaked with a new kind of goodness and every dew-filled morning is new...refreshed by the rain that has finally come and in abundance.

Today I'm redefining the rain...or is it redefining me?