The rain!  How beautiful! How refreshing! And mesmerizing!  It began to rain today and I recalled my youth when I loved to walk and run in the rain.  It was so much fun and felt so good.  So why not as an adult?

I went outside and walked around, disappointed it had turned to just a simple drizzle.  But it’s a good start, I thought.  I walked through the pasture, down to the arena and back. Slowly the rain began to pick up to a steady light rain.  So lovely.  As I walked I began to think about myself walking in the rain.  “When did I stop living my life and become a spectator, a commentator about my life?” I asked.  It was suddenly so obvious to me.  I was an outside observer, but I wanted to be living inside life.  I talked with the Lord about it and determined I would from this day on be involved. I would participate in my life and no longer stand on the sidelines watching it.  Admittedly, it was hard to keep that focus and to not keep drifting into observer role.

“Lord, make it rain harder.  Rain on me.  I want to feel every bit of it. I want the waters to wash over me and awaken every sense in my being.”  It didn’t rain harder, but I did begin to feel the awakening. I felt so alive.  I recalled my earlier conversation with the Lord when I asked what these emotions were, these stirrings inside my body.

“It’s my spirit.  It’s your spirit,” he told me.  “That is the spirit leading and guiding you and loving you. Embrace it and nurture it,” he told me. Steadily growing more and more wet, I looked into the sky and appreciated the rain.

“Why is it we have learned to run inside – out of the rain?” I asked the Lord.  “It’s your creation. It’s beautiful and it has purpose. Why are we so compelled to hide from it?”

“Man has strange ways,” said the Lord.  “He is fearful, and he just runs.  He assigns labels of good and bad to everything around him, never stopping to talk with me about it.  He labels something bad and then he runs away.

I am pleased you have chosen to not run any longer. I am pleased you have chosen to explore and appreciate the garden I made for you.  I am pleased when you stop and look at the plant life, the animal life and appreciate it. That nurtures your soul. That is a part of healing. That is why today you can feel the rain and run into it, removed from the sidelines.”

“Teach me, Lord.  Teach me to love you by loving what you have made. Show me how to look, how to see what is life before me, and to know what is life in me.”

I took a seat and sat a while in the rain. It was slow, light and steady.  “I want to get drenched, Lord!  Send a torrential rain!”

Nothing.

“Please, Lord. Make it rain harder.  I want to be drenched.”

“Of course you do,” he said.  “Because then you would check it off your list – I walked in the rain; I got drenched. – and then you would go inside and go about your business looking for something else. You would forget all about this experience. A heavy rain would not serve you well right now.”

I understood.  I recognized what he was speaking of.

“I know how to woo you, my precious one.  Take in this light rain today, and on another day we’ll walk in the rain again, and again and you will know me deeper and deeper.  Yes, you will be soaked, drenched.  But it will be through the steady flow, a process of getting to know me and me to know you, and it will be good.”

“Thank you, Lord.  I get it.”