Sometimes it rains and parts of you wonder about heaven. And you push your face up to the window pane to watch the water and see your breath reflected in the glass.
I feel the damp at the fringes of my pants, where feet walked through puddles to scoop up the kitchen toys the boys had left outside. Pete says we can buy new ones if these old ones flake away, their wood all wet through from days outside and fall storms.
But they are a treasure to me. I bought each set lovingly over these last years since Jackson moved from three to six and lost interest in play food and kitchens. But a Zoe girl has come into my heart and my arms and I can close my eyes and imagine her chubby hands holding little blue pots and pans and pretending she’s cooking with me. Me the mom who’s no great cook. But who loves food.
So I kneel there in the wet hedge and scoop up the forgotten slices of wooden pizza, the chopped up bit of carrot, the little silver pots and pans just the right size for miniature hands. They’ve been keeping the dump trucks and diggers company – a yard littered with the imagination of boys.
I wipe them off. Bring them onto the deck. Shake off my frustration at boys who run to fast at life to remember yesterday’s games.
Zoe is six months old. Tomorrow she will be two. How will I bear it? This passing of time and life and all those wet slobbery kisses she gives now as she grabs handfuls of my hair and drags my face toward her own.
My friend Sara is dying. So is Pete’s grandmother. And there’s a baby in South Africa whose life my parents are fighting for.
The day weeps rain and I sit with wet pant legs and watch it through the window.
Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. Ps 30:5
They tell me this is true. And I choose to believe it.
Because without belief there’s just the wet and the damp and the nothing. No sense, no reason, no hope. Just a river of tears. But I believe and so I also understand. Because rain is not the end of the story – it brings growth– the bulbs, the seeds, the roots and the new life.
It’s all happening right there outside my window. Water pouring life into the ground so that things I can’t see might grow.
I believe.
I ache. My feet are wet and cold. The forecast is for more rain.
But I believe.
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Oh Lisa-Jo…this was the kind of achingly beautiful that makes my heart wrap around ‘Blessings’ by Laura Story, you know this? right? Your heart and ability to craft a post that has the same type of beauty as the reality to which you speak, thank you for blessing so this morning…Here’s the part of ‘Blessings’ I especially thought of:
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching(s) of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise…
Youtube link for you and anyone who hasn’t been blessed yet by this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOOFAaUGfRE&feature=related
with love, Abby:}
Oh yes, that song is so beautiful. Thank you for connecting it to this post – I have it on repeat now. Good background to this wet day. Thank you Abby.
You’re absolutely right that this song fits Lisa-Jo’s post.
Lisa-Jo, I wish I could give you a hug. I think for me the hardest part about accepting Sara’s homecoming is that she’s so young still. It seems like she should have another 40 or 50 years here to share with us, teach us and love us. The same goes for young children, especially those rocked by the famine and by poverty. As much as I lament the passing away of the older generations, I can’t help but feel that at least they had an opportunity to live, you know? Yes, we will miss them, but hopefully we valued them while they were still here, listened and stored away their stories and love and hope.
It’s just what I thought of–that song!
When I know this truth, or at least think I do because I choose to…I still have not a single answer that seems to make sense, as my best friend prepares for loss of her little {yet with purpose still} baby that hasn’t been created for longer than a brief moment. Her questions bring me to my knees in understanding of the pain I lived, and how I really, truly still waver in my belief. It’s all grace–every speck of it. I choose to believe. And I trust He stands in our gap.
I love that song! I think it’s becoming my theme song. God is so strange :) And this post is fabulous as well
needed this today.
now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see….
Like the above commenter I thought of the song “Blessings” as well.
Praise God that we have hope. Hope in Him. Through all of this pain and heartache, we have hope.
Aching, breathing, looking heavenward with you friend… last week on the same day we found out about Gitz, I found out my beloved father in law is struggling with something that has been tentatively diagnosed as bone cancer… we find out today if it really is. Praying that it is not, and that he has many more decades to spend with us…
Some days you just have to remind yourself to breathe, even if it is into the rain. Will keep you in prayer too as I pray for my own family.
Ah, the hope of sunlight to come! As I watch the rain come down here today, thinking of the future to come makes the soggy day bearable. And it’s a comfort to tie it to the rest of life as you do because every time I’ve had a horribly rainy season, something new and beautiful has come from it.
Beautiful post. Sadness doesn’t trump beauty, sometimes it even magnifies it. Thank you for sharing.
I remember the day when we drove all of our broken dreams down the red dirt road. And the sky split open and wept with us.
This post took me back.
The African sun did come out that day. And it shone down all warm and comforting over our weary souls. How He wrapped us in His perfect peace that day.
Thank you for the reminder.
((Loves))
this post is so… so… beautiful, so… perfect, so… rich. i’m so… struggling for words… my eyelids barely hold my tears… my breath catches because of this lump caught in my throat. your words feed my soul and mend my heart. thank you to you and the many other bloggers who share such lovely, loving tributes to sweet sara. all your words are like manna as we keep our private vigils of prayer and thanksgiving and trust that God is with Sara and her loved ones in the iowa condo, making all things perfect in His time.
Poetry at its loveliest. Perfect for this rainy day.
Your writing, sweet girl, is a gift straight from above. Thank you so much for sharing that gift with us. ((hugs))
I absolutely love this post today… perfectly penned… a picture is worth a thousand words… your words today bring forth a thousand vivid pictures to memory of moments just like this!
Blessings to you Gypsy Mama
“Rain is not the end of the story” So incredibly thankful for that truth!
It’s hard, I know. So terribly hard, in those last days, knowing that death is coming and there is no way to stop it. You and Sara have been and continue to be in my prayers.
Beautiful post Lisa-Jo. Sounds like your heart is full with the sometimes difficult graces that God bestows upon us. Thinking of you and Sara.
Lisa-Jo.
Thank you.
Psalm 30 – the whole thing – speaks to me from my bathroom wall. Most days I remember; I cling to the promises, the mercy. But there are overwhelm-seasons…where it seems to rain day-after-endless-day…and I forget. I read the words, and they speak monotonous, hum-drum redundancy.
Can I hear them with ears & eyes open, seeking hope?
Lord, can You speak Your ancient words of Truth and Hope in new ways?
Am I too far gone? Can You reach me thru the darkness?
And He does.
Right here, from your screen to mine, Lisa-Jo.
Thanks.
I have clung to my belief and faith with every fiber in my body the last few months and am starting to see through the rain to joy once more. And that is a true gift from God…
Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength….Nehemiah 8:10
Just beautiful, Lisa-Jo. Rain and sunshine, life and death – all things working together. We don’t see clearly; the full picture is hidden. But we choose to believe that God is always in control. We choose to have hope.
This post brought joy and such peace to my spirit. My younger sister passed away February 2010 and a friend gave us tulip bulbs to plant, so now tulips remind me of new life springing forth — even from tragedy and sorrow.
“Because rain is not the end of the story – it brings growth– the bulbs, the seeds, the roots and the new life.”
Thank you for allowing your gift of words to bless others; I am certainly blessed and filled with joy knowing your words echo with Jesus’ Truth.
Lisa-Jo, I am praying for you. Your post?-Beautiful. xx
This is beautiful, Lisa-Jo.
We’ve been in a season of waiting the past few years. Waiting on a house to sell, waiting on the right job to come, waiting for children to be born (sleep through the night, learn to use the potty consistently, etc.).
As you might imagine, I’ve written about what God does in the waiting quite a bit. (Top o’ mind and all that jazz.) While I’m still not keen on waiting, I’ve come to love the lessons God teaches me there.
Beautiful. Some days the brokeness of this world seems like too much. I wrote about rain today also, but from the perspective of being restored by it. “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint” (Jeremiah 31:25). Praying you find the comfort to dance in the rain today.
Was at a concert last night where Kate Hurley sung of that verse and wrote about heaven today, I’m marveling at the timeliness of your post.
This was beautiful, Lisa-Jo. Thank you for writing it, for reminding me.
Thank you for this. I believe, too. Even when it’s hard to do sometimes.
Bittersweet beauty and hope here today, Lisa-Jo. Grateful for you and your way with words. And those verses…much-needed balm for bruised spirit.
Praying for Sara with you all…
I received a reply to an email last night that simply read “Right now my heart is bleeding” in regards to Sara’s dying. I only now know of her as a result of the love shown to her throughout the blog world during this time of her passing, but one thing is for sure her impact will LEAD to a spiritual harvest that will be beyond our imagination.
During this storm of life, I pray God continues to lift you high above the raging storm for brief moments of clarity, so that you may press on believing.
–He makes beauty from ashes.
So well stated… very encouraging.
Hi
Last night we experience an amazing tropical storm here in the Philippines, followed by a night with a teething one year old, this post was so relevant to me and cheered my heart this morning
many thanks
from Ros
If there’s one drum I want to beat in this life it’s the drum of home. The unseen other world home. The beat calling us all to step in time to the world our hearts live in but our body’s haven’t been to. I hope that as the sky weeps the far off sound of the unseen rhythm sooths your soul.
Thank you for this beautiful writing and breathtaking photos. Not only does the rain bring the flowers, but without the cold, damp moments in life, we would never appreciate the joyful colors and warmth of a sunny day. All things work together for good for those who love God and are the called according to His purpose, and even the trials bring forth patience, hope, compassion, and greater faith (Rom. 8:28). I am blessed by your blog and have signed up by email, and I invite you to follow mine, Saved by Grace; http://savedbygracebiblestudy.blogspot.com/
love in Christ, Laurie Collett