Monthly Archives: October 2014

When the rain comes

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In the years of this drought I have questioned–what if the water does not return?

Sometimes we have gone months and months without a drop.

There are people in my life whose lives are desert-y lives. Not just sit on the couch desert, full-blown felony and addiction desert.

They challenge my faith. So I tell God–I believe, help my unbelief.

And He says–

It is unfair to the desert to judge it definitively when there is no rain.

Rain changes things. Rain brings life and washes away the dust. Rain makes rivers in the desert, streams of water where nothing could grow.

So I pray for rain.

Jesus says he is living water. Living water poured out for us. He does not just bring the rain, he is the rain.

That Sinking Feeling

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For years, and categorically for the first nine months, I awoke each morning and lay in my bed wracked with dread.

Because the children were so punishing.

Trips to parks, grocery stores, the pool, church were all fraught with the certainty of sturm and drang. Sometimes interchangeably.

I remember waiting in Philadelphia for my husband to return after a medical conference. We had to check out of the hotel so for several hours I walked in downtown Philadelphia with the children.

One would begin to wail and would do so for blocks, eventually losing interest. Then the other would commence. Their verbal displeasure was noted by all who passed us.

Normal people.

I found a square and planted us there. The wailing planted itself with us.

The only pictures I have of them as babies–before foster care, before I met them–survived a fire.

All that remains of before.