Last week I feel asleep listening to the rain.
The sound of the rain hitting my tent was hypnotizing and I loved it.
I was really happy about the rainstorm until I woke up cold and damp the next morning.
I found out the next morning that part of the tarp had been sticking out from underneath our tent and it had collected a large amount of water during that rainstorm.
So Mark Newland, my tent mate, and I got the chance to experience our first World Race waterbed together.
He ended up hogging most of the waterbed because there was a slight slope under out tent.
Since more water accumulated under him, he noticed it first and woke me up.
We both kind of looked at each other like, “Really, is this happening?”
We soon realized we are “hardcore World Racers” and we need to deal with it.
We figured this will most likely happen again to us in the next year so lets just try to fix it and carry on.
Mark quickly started to soak up the water with his towel.
I joined in at a more zombie like speed.
While I keep soaking up the water, Mark threw on some pants and hopped out of the tent to adjust the rain fly and fix the part of the tarp that was still collecting water because it was still raining.
As I finishing soaking up the water inside the tent, I finally got the courage to come out of my mummy bag and brave the cold for the few seconds that it would take me to throw on a nice pair of chilled jeans.
About that time, Mark came back inside the tent.
We looked at each other and in our heads we both did the typical man grunt thing in our heads that men do when they fix stuff.
(You know the grunt Tim Allen does on Home Improvement)
When we finished patting ourselves on the back, we got all of our things ready for the day and we headed up for breakfast.
As I was walking up for breakfast, I was thinking about the water in our tent and I was wondering if we actually fixed the problem or not.
I guess we really didn’t know if we had fixed it, but we would find out come bed time.
I started wishing that the rain would just go away.
It didn’t.
After I gobbled down a delicious breakfast, I walked up toward AIM’s office.
I was walking through the grass, and I quickly remember that when you walk through wet grass, your shoes and socks get soaked really fast.
When I reached the door, I looked down to take off my wet shoes, I noticed that my pants had done a great job of acting like a wick because my pants were also soaked to about mid-calf.
So now I am starting to get ticked because of the rain, but I had good reason.
I woke up in a puddle.
My shoes, socks, and pants were soaked and they weren’t going to dry anytime soon.
I began cursing the rain in my head as I went upstairs to listen to our first speaker of the day.
I ended up picking a chair that was directly in front of one of the windows.
I looked out at the rain and thought, “Why don’t you just go away rain? You are annoying me.
We are trying to have a nice training camp, and you are just getting in the way.
Just rain next week when we are gone.”
I felt much better now that I had told the rain off.
As we got ready to start, I looked back out the window.
I saw a couple of trees sitting there peacefully.
I noticed that the leaves on the trees were starting to bud.
I realized that these trees were starting to come to life.
I also realized that in order for these trees to come to life, they needed this rain.
I sat there and was humbled.
That whole morning, I had sat there and thought that the whole world should revolve around me.
I could only see how the rain was affecting me at the moment and since I didn’t like it, I wanted it to go away.
I didn’t realize that God had sent this rain to bring life.
I quickly related this thought back to my life.
Things happen in my life that I don’t understand.
They might make me mad, annoyed, frustrated, confused, and scared among many other things.
So often, I just want these things to be finished and to go away so I can be happy again.
What I now realize is that God might be trying to bring life to me or someone else through these trials.
So next time I am going through a hard time, I am going to remember back to this beautiful rainy day.
We need to remember that even when we dont understand or dont like what is going on, God is working in something to bring it to life and we need to praise Him for that.
