I was awoken this morning to my mom telling me it was beautiful outside and that perhaps I should consider waking up to go outside and work. However, I don't focus very well when I first wake up, so I ended up falling back asleep. When I did venture outside to begin working the sun was shining and the sky was gorgeous shades of blue. So for three hours I was shoveling and digging, dumping and spreading dirt, listening to my iPod the whole time. Slowly but surely the clouds began to roll in and the sky lost its blue allure.
It began to rain.
At first just a drip every once in awhile, nothing too significant. Nothing that would slow me down. However, those drips turned to sprinkles and the sprinkles to drops and suddenly it was pouring down rain on me. And I am standing there, shovel in hand, watching and feeling the rain cover me, turn my dirt pile to mud and wash away the specks of dirt.
I love the rain.
I often think about the rain, the way it makes the earth smell and the grass greener. It makes everything appear new and fresh. Rain has a cleansing power, an ability to make things clean and new- unscathed.
However, rain also fleshes out the imperfections; it tears down our masks and uncovers our attempts at covering our imperfections. We can use a piece of chalk to draw over and mask a crack or a flaw on the sidewalk but when the rain comes, the chalk is washed away and the thing we were trying to hide is once again before our eyes. We can only hide and cover-up our mistakes, errors, and imperfections until the next rain.
And the rain will come.
So, maybe God is like the rain- twofold- allowing us a cleansing from all that is unclean but also laying bear what we tried to leave unseen. He takes us from our broken, battered, dirty state and creates in us something new and beautiful. However, He also uncovers our attempts at hiding and masking- He sees our flaws and our imperfections. I don't think He uncovers these to hurt us, but rather to see our hurts and heal us.
The rain is beautiful, but it can be uncomfortable as well.
I am standing there being soaked and even though it was once warm and sunny, I am now becoming cold. My shoes are becoming soggy. My hair is dripping in my eyes. My clothes are sticking to me. My feet are sticking to the mud. And the rain that is renewing and restoring is now making me uncomfortable...
... but only for a season.
