Reach for the Rain

I do realize it’s been awhile since we had a moment to visit. Thanks so much for stopping by to chat with me. I’ll put some tea on. Have a seat on the porch and I’ll be right back with a couple of mugs of green tea for us to chat over.

Now where was I…it’s been awhile. Life was doing what it does you know. I totally am not surprised by the challenges that day to day experiences bring. I’m just glad that the things I’ve encountered recently have brought growth in my life much like that of my garden here in the front of the house.

After that winter cold snap back in late February, I’d thought I lost everything in the garden. As the story is told, I was getting ready to pull everything up until my best friend told me “nooooooo!!! Stop, just cover the roots with good soil. They’ll come back.” She was right. My elephant ears in particular started pushing through the soil and now they are multiplying so rapidly that I almost don’t have enough room for them.

This is where things get interesting. Sunday morning, I came outside for a moment just to sip on my coffee and ran right into a downpour. I sat down to listen to the wind whipping through the wind chimes and to hear the rhythm of the rain as it fell upon the things around me. Each had a distinct sound and I enjoyed the solitude of the noise. The peace in that moment— while sipping on my morning’s dark roast— was exceptional. As the sleep cleared my eyes and the rain continued to fall, I noticed something exceptional.

The elephant ears were standing at attention and curving themselves towards the rain. What a magnificent sight this was to behold! The harder the drops, the more the stems straightened and the more the leaves began to reach for the rain. In the examples of my elephant ears, I heard “reach for the rain. Reach for the rain.”

The wind chimes playing the soundtrack to this moment with the pat of the rain thumping the leaves, I began to connect the natural inclination of the elephant ears to reach for what they needed. Without me coming outside with a water pot to refresh them, they knew how to dig deeply into the soil for support and nutrients, to lean towards the sun for light, and to reach for the rain.

I began to think through what reaching I needed to do. As for me, I usually run from the rain. I try to get indoors. I avoid driving in it because I am well aware —as one who has always lived in the south—of the destructive path of rain when hurricanes and floods come. Before my hair was natural, I’d sho-nuff run from the rain because I didn’t want to mess up my hair. Very rarely have I thought of rain in other contexts.

However, watching those elephant ears stretch and reach for the rain, I thought of all the things that rain, even when inconvenient, can bring. Rain facilitates growth. Rain softens hard soil. Rain even brings refreshing. So, instead of trying to avoid every rainy day, we should consider reaching for them. Reach for the growth. Allow the refreshing to come. Let the drops break up any hardness in your heart. And even when the rain is accompanied by stormy winds, grow through it.

Reach for the rain…