Yesterday it took me an hour to get home from work. The normal commute is thirty minutes but the heavy rain coupled with the foreboding clouds and dark sky seemed to make it harder to see. Even though I really love the rain (from my bed under several blankets with music playing and the window cracked ever so slightly), I almost opened my mouth to complain about how wet and dark it was, how long it took to get home, how the extra thirty minutes in the car made me tired, and how I had a lot of housework to do. I logged onto Facebook and saw all sorts of half-serious pleas for God to make the rain go away and observations about how people in southern California don't have to worry about rain the way we do. Again, I started to join the fray before logic set in.
Every morning I get up to take a shower. The water might get cold after a good long while but it never ceases to come out of the shower head. I open my shades and have a view of a huge tree with leaves that help keep my place cool in the summer. When I want to visit water, the oceans, rivers, and streams are always full and when I need a bottle of water after a workout, there is always one available. Obviously, the rain makes all of that happen and after the rain stops, I always seem to be better off than I was before it started.
I look at the rain the same way I look at my problems. They sometimes put me in a place that is dark and the time it takes me to perform a regular task is sometimes doubled because the problem interferes with my ability to be efficient. Despite the challenge, once the problem is solved I feel refreshed and better than I did before the problem started.
Rain is cathartic. Not only does it make things grow, it makes things clean. When we complain about the rain we complain about one of the very elements that keeps us alive and refreshed. I'm sure I will still have plenty of days I want to complain about the rain or my personal problems but hopefully I'll be able to put the situation into perspective and know that I will always end up growing and cleansed because of it.
