i love the way rain smells. always a bit different, depending on where it is falling. it changes the air. the way it smells. the way it feels. the thickness. the temperature. when rain comes, it alters all that it touches. it turns everything just a bit brighter shade of green and lifts the heads of droopy, thirsty plants. i love rain! our world is amazing because it was imagined by the most perfect, creative, loving, thoughtful, deep, vibrant, pure God who's life and Spirit marks all that He gave life to. all that we see. (Romans 1:20-21.."for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse). i see traces of Him and sometimes i think to tell Him how he inspires me, but not always. i wanna be more mindful of Him always. when i see the intricate designs and deep colors of wildflowers. when i am touched by a soft, hopeful breeze that floats by. when i fall asleep to the heavy pounding and deep rumblings of a thunderstorm. i see traces of Him in all these things, but especially in the human life. our capacity for joy, love, relationships, pain. though anyone who watches the news or has has experienced life knows that amidst all of this beauty and goodness, there's a whole lot of brokenness, destruction and suffering. how could a truly good and loving God really be behind this, allowing all this to go on. and writing fluffy blogs about the beauty and serenity of rain may not convince those skeptics. i understand. there are a lot of mysteries about the way that God works- a very big one being that He is love, but this world is often everything that opposes love. but i do know that the fact that we have a desire for something better, a discontentment with our world's state is such evidence that we were made for something different. that there is something placed in each of us which cries out for more. for Him.
another, more shallow thing i love and appreciate about rain is how there are so many different kinds of rain. it has different personalities. this rain that i felt asleep to was cold and strong. it reminded me of the rain in my hometown in Peru, nestled 10,000 feet up in the Andes. during rainy season, we would get these rains every day in the afternoon. often times it would be at its peak during our walk home from school. it was exhilarating to walk home on the muddy, dirt roads while chilly rain pounded down on my umbrella. sometimes we would put on our rain gear and go out and play in the puddles and small, rushing rivers that would form in the dirt road outside our house. the peruvians thought we were a bit (maybe a lot) crazy, going out into the rain intentionally.
jungle rains were my favorite though. they were INCREDIBLE! the jungle (as we called it), or the peruvian amazon was one of my all time favorite places in the world, i think. we went once a year for our mission meetings and we'd stay on our mission base. we'd stay for a glorious two weeks, running around barefoot on the red clay paths, sitting in the shade of mango trees, encountering all kinds of plants and animals we didn't even know existed, and swimming light-heartedly in the pirhana-inhabited river (a branch off of the amazon). i think i'd still do it, though i'd probably have a lot more anxst in the process. :) i loved everything about it, especially the rain. when it rained... it would come in such powerful, terrential down poors. the jungle was hot and the air was thick and heavy. so the rains were warm, and tropical. perfect playing-in-the-rain conditions! all the red clay would turn into soft, sludgy mud, which just begged to be slid in, and slide we did. i hope to experience jungle rains again someday!
i love that God wants to know us so badly. that he is a God of life, of intimacy and relationship and even of the drops of dew (job 38:28)
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