You are human.
The drops of rain seemed to whisper, christening my skin and awakening me to my surroundings as I gently touched the damp leaves of a beautiful, small bush in the garden I found myself sitting in. The life in the depth of its color hurt my eyes almost as much as the calm quiet of the gentle summer rain soothed my ears.
You are human.
Each droplet called me into existence from the week-long stupor I’d been under, all the change in my life happening too fast for me to keep up. So much had been going on around me that this quiet moment was the first time I’d been completely still, alone with my thoughts and alone to think, to reflect and to cry the easy, calming cry that often comes when we remember – when we feel – that we are never alone.
You are human.
The drops of water fell sweetly at random on my legs, and though I was freshly showered, I was content to let them dampen my skin again as they reminded me I was still breathing. The water covered my hands as I kept touching each plant around me, in awe of such natural beauty. It was the kind of beauty that can’t be described, only felt. It was the first real sign of life I had seen in a couple of months after being on African soil and sand, and though there had been life there, there was nothing so green and damp and alive as the garden that surrounded me on this little Georgia lawn.
Everything there seemed so… intentional. Wild, but free. Still, but alive. Full of promise, and promises of the fullness of creation. This garden whispered in the rain the promise of Eden to my hurting heart and tired eyes, and it reminded me of a larger picture and story I’d seemed to have forgotten. Each raindrop that stung my skin whispered somewhere in my soul.
You are human.
The world itself seemed still, the summer rain extending the calm of morning across the day, the clouds a gray blanket that hushed everything underneath its weight. There was silence, and it filled my ears. The colors continued to hurt my eyes. The life reminded me of my own, the life that is ahead of me, the life promised me in eternity, the life interrupted, but never hopeless, that I am living.
I got up and moved toward the flowers that seemed to have a secret to tell me, not caring that the rain continued. I held one in my hand and quietly – finally – wept, its beauty unlocking the familiar grief of loss from my soul, releasing it and healing the tiniest part of me. The flower seemed like it had blossomed just for this moment, like it knew I was coming and knew I would need to be reminded that life’s toughest moments are sweetened by the life that awaits, that this life is always seasonal and that we bloom and die, we plant and harvest, we laugh and cry, and that it’s all part of the larger story we’re passing through.
I let the flower go, and I rubbed the dew between my fingers slowly, like a healing ointment. Maybe it was.
I am human.
It seemed I had stumbled upon sanctuary.
A few days later, I went on a morning run. It was similarly overcast, but the rain seemed to be holding off. I had run for twenty minutes when the bottom dropped out. I stopped and held out my arms, wondering what the cars passing me were thinking but not really caring, fully free, breathless at the beauty and brawn of a summer rainstorm. The thunder startled me so much that I took out one of my headphones and hoped for another boom just to let it fill my ears and surround me in every sense. It was terrifying, and terrifyingly beautiful. I hadn’t heard anything like it in eight months.
I walked home in the rain, savoring every moment, and before I made it to the house, I stopped at a scenic overlook in the neighborhood. Really, it was just one of those places where trees have been cleared for power lines to run through, but to me, the wild, tall grass and the bushes and trees were everything scenic and captivating. I stopped, drenched, and while the rain pounded my shoulders, I remembered the moment in the garden a few days before and the rain's tinkling reminder of my humanity.
I whispered a dampened prayer to God as a raindrop (or was it a tear?) rolled down my cheek. I was sad to be back, away from my friends and from the ministry I had grown to enjoy doing so much, away from the nomadic life that had become so comfortably home, though I understood that new things are happening in my life and that they are just as worthy of thanks as my eight months on the Race.
And despite the sadness, all the change and all the gray, the dreariness of the morning and the roll of the thunder, ominous and threatening – looking out over all the life being soaked by the rain, mine included, I felt peace and hope rest as heavily on my heart as my dampened shirt rested on my shoulders. I sighed through a halfhearted smile.
I am human.
Not wishing to move, I let the rain soak me and everything around me, just doing what rain does and playing no favorites, and in one of those moments that seem to last forever – in fact, a friend calls them "forever moments" – I remembered how necessary rain is in the cycle of life. Rain is one of those things that does for us what we can't do for ourselves, reminding us that we are dependent on things out of our own control and ultimately, at the mercy of Mercy himself.
Rain – it soaks and drenches, then dampens and drowns. It inundates. It ruins parades.
And rain cleanses, refreshes, renews, invigorates. Rain restores and, eventually, rain brings the power of transformation to the deadness it drowns. Rain presses pause on the button of life and sobers us at the reminder of our helplessness and our need.
We need rain.
I felt strangely alive at the reality of my own feebleness.
Rain is just a cyclical part of the grander seasonal rhythm of our life, and it brings about blossoms as bright as the one that made me cry, life as inspiring as the landscape that surrounded me a couple of weeks ago. We look back on certain rains and talk about them the way old folks talk about past weather events with a gleam and a memory in their eyes, saying things like, “that great ol’ blizzard of ’49.”
Sometimes, rain is so substantial that we look back on the floods that devastatingly interrupted the sunshine, that seemed to destroy everything; we reflect on those rains and become aware that we still remain despite what has been lost; we suddenly realize how much life now surrounds us and we say, amazed, in the words of a good friend,
That’s where God saved me.
And with every drop and in every moment it reminds us, as the garden did, that we are human, and perhaps there is no greater reminder to be had. The rain awakens us to the reality of our dependence on the One who sends it – our utter, desperate need for a Provider and Healer, Redeemer and Restorer, Refresher and Reviver. A Lover and a Leader, a Guide and a Grace.
How desperately we need Grace, and often it falls slowly,
intentionally,
deliberately,
stinging our legs
and lingering on our fingertips.
One drop at a time,
reminding us again:
I am human.
So, friends, to the rain:
May we sing in it. May we dance in it. May we be human in it.
And, mostly, may we rejoice in whatever it brings.
m
the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. -isaiah 58
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