Dear Papa,
I'm not a RAIN kinda girl. I never really liked the rain. It leaves you wet, cold, and for the most part it takes away from the SUN that you made to make the whole world shine. Well isn't it ironic (as Alanis Morissette would say), that you've placed me in the RAINEST place in the United States!! (Did I mention that I'm not a huge fan of rain?!?) I have to admit, it is a beautiful part of the country–some even say God's country! But Papa, sometimes it's hard to see all that beauty when it's obscured by the overcast sky. And I can't help but ask, Why the WAWA state? Why the rain?!
Lately, however, I've been pondering the value of the rain with a little help from John Piper.
"The Great Work of God: Rain – A Thanksgiving Meditation on Job 5:8-10"
But if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. He bestows rain on the earth; he sends water upon the countryside. Job 5:8-10
I know it's easy for me to just accept that water evaporates, it waits, and drops down again. BUT DO I REALLY THINK OF THE COMPLEXITY OF IT ALL?
John Piper gets into the nitty gritty details…please bare with me as I put my 130WPM fingers to work…
"..water has to come from another source on the fields. From where?
Well, the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well, not exactly. Water will have to be carred in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea over several hundred miles, and then be poured out on the fields from the sky. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 2,323,200 cubic feet of water, which is 17,377,536 gallons, which is 144,735,360 pounds of water.
That's heavy. So how does it get up in the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy? Well, it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That's a nice word. What's it mean? It means that the water stops being water for a while so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well, condensation happens. What's that? The water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide. That's small.
What about the salt? Salt? Yes, the Mediterranean Sea is saltwater. That would kill the crops. What about the salt? Well, the salt has to be taken out. Oh. So the sky picks up millions of pounds of water from the sea, takes out the salt, carries the water (or whatever it is, when it is not water) for three hundred miles and then damps it (now turned into water again) on the farm?
Well, it doesn't dump it. If it dumped millions of pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the millions of pounds of water down in little drops. And they have to be big enough to keep from crashing the wheat stalks.
How do all these microscopic specks of water that weigh millions of pounds get heavy enough to fall (if that's the way to ask the question0? Well, it's caled coalescence. What's that? It means the specks of water start bumping into each other and join up and get bigger, and when they are big enough, they fall. Just like that? Well, not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up if there were no electric field present. What? Never mind. Take my word for it."
I'll think twice, Papa, before saying the rain sucks….before taking your ingenious creation for granted!!
Papa, you are amazing!! Thank you for all the hard work. Thank you for the blessings that shower down on me EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I sure as heck know I could never do it… I can't do anything without You.
Love,
Your drenched daughter Marian =)
P.S. And as for the reason why I think you temporarily placed me here in Washington?? Well… "No rain, no gain" comes to mind! You are cultivating me ever so diligently in this natural storm so that I may bear fruits of the Spirit and that I may be equipped spiritually for the harvest that is waiting for me out in a world wrought with drought. Me and my fellow racers are going to drench them with an extra dose of your LOVE! They don't even know what's about to hit them…
