Rain makes Flowers Grow

     The past few days have been squelching hot. Yesterday, the temperatures kept going up and up, till we hit nearly 105 degrees. I felt bad for all those poor kids out on the fields playing sports.

     Plus we're in a drought. Over the past few months everything keeps getting browner. The lawns getting a tan, flowers shriveling to nothing, the land slowly but surely dying of thirst.

     But then it happens. Rain hits, dripping out of the dark clouds above like an invading army. Everyone is forced to look up, and is faced with a jolting question. What is this wet stuff? This stuff that makes the air hotter and more humid than ever? This stuff that brings flash floods, and that makes our roads too slippery to drive on? This stuff that causes fatal accidents to appear on our freeways, makes the traffic so bad I can't get to work?

     I see the rain, the trouble it causes. And I think to myself, what a tremendous blessing for this day. A watering on this parched land, a washing of our dirty city air.

      But why is it so easy to thank God for the rain that waters the ground, and not for the trials that sanctify us? The storms can hurt. But in the end, they're a blessing from above. No pun intended. They teach us, grow us, and make us more like Christ. The rain can shatter the routines of life, but they generally cause flowers to grow. Keeping that in mind when all we can see is wetness and gray is the hard part.

The Flower

The ground is hard, made of desert floor.

No rain has passed by this way before,

A seed is dropped, but it won’t sprout.

No plants can grow in such a drought.

The sky grows dark, the clouds form black,

A storm is building; preparing to attack.

The rain grows heavy, leaning towards the ground,

The lightning cracks, and the thunder sounds.

The wind whips across the land,

Through dried plants, and through hard sand.

The crack of lightning, the boom of thunder,

The dessert floor is torn asunder.

The rain pelts the earth with force,

It penetrates with no remorse.

The rain pours out till morning break,

Then waits so still, for life to wake.

Eroded, beaten, stripped and bruised,

The dessert floor awakes anew.

Though the land lay desolate from the storm

A small seed sprouts and takes new form.

It grows with rapid and wondrous speed,

The small flower blooms faster than any weed.

Its glossy peddles unfurl as its shape takes form,

A radiant beauty flows from the flower adorned.

Though the storm was fierce and destructive,

For a one small seed it was productive.

It sprouted, it grew, it blossomed, it bloomed,

A rusty dry dessert, by a storm was groomed.