Bring the Rain

I've had this post brewing for a few days. I really hope I can get everything I want to say written correctly.

Let me start by saying if you've never heard the song "Bring the Rain" by Mercy Me, by all means find it and take a listen. This song has really been speaking to me lately. The short and sweet of it is that's how I want my life to be lived all the time. That's the view of my circumstances I always want to have. No matter what's going on - good or bad.

Until my mid-twenties, I had very little tragedy in my life. Of couse, I lost a grandpa when I was 7, and great-grandparents along the way. That was bound to happen because when I was born I had ALL my grandparents, great grandparents, and great-great grandparents except one. So I was used to "old" people passing away.

The first sudden death I experienced was during my junior year of high school. A girl a year ahead of me in school, Tracey, was killed one weekend night in a car accident. She and I were not close. Really, we were only in band together and did not hang out together. The thing that made it hit me so hard was remembering the Friday afternoon before she died. For some reason I came out the back exit of the school (I usually exited from the front). Tracey and her boyfriend, Wayne, were walking out in front of me. They were goofing around flirting with each other. She hopped on his back and he took off running with her giggling and holding on tight. They were seniors and at that moment had no worries whatsoever. When my parents told me she'd died, that image of her on Wayne's back was the first thing that came to my mind. They were so carefree...but just a few hours later lives were forever changed.

Fast forward about 16 months to the evening before my senior prom. I'd already gone to bed, but heard the phone ring later that night. It's never good news when the phone rings late at night, right? Right. My dad's cousin had been killed in a car wreck.

A year or so later, a young man from my hometown was murdered in a local grocery store robbery. As the details of the incident came out, I was appalled and so saddened at the things he had to endure during the last moments of his life. Years later when Jim and I moved back to my home town, it took all the strength I could muster just to grocery shop in that same store. My heart still ached for what he and his family had to go through.

Fast forward again to 1997. Jim and I are enjoying life. Jake's 18 months old and a joy to be with. I'm working as a bank teller. One day Jim comes in and I'm giddy that he's stopped to pay me a visit. What I didn't know was that my supervisor already knew he was coming. He had come to tell me that my mom's only brother had just been killed in a car accident. That was the only time in my life I have ever lost control in a public place. I hated that he had to come tell me...so did he.

It's now 2001. My paternal grandparents had had marital "issues" for what I had learned was years and years. My grandpa was an alcoholic. After months of living with the possibility of divorce and being separated, not long after grandpa moved back into the house with grandma, he committed suicide. It was a shock to my system to say the least. This is the stuff that happens to other people, right?...not to my family. Wrong. Because of what Jim thinks is a morbid fascination, I asked to go in and see Grandpa before the coroner removed his body from the house. My parents went with me. I don't regret seeing him that way, but it was not what I expected.

As we approach 2004, I want to stop in September 2003. In an overnight hospital stay for what we originally believed to be appendicitis, my mom was diagnosed with a tumor on her right adrenal gland. They were going to remove it in mid-October. I remember sitting in the car with her after doctor's appointment before the surgery. She knew I was scared. She told me "if it's cancer, we'll deal with it." It was. Four months to the day of her surgery to remove the tumor, my mom died. Those were the fastest and the slowest four months all at the same time. So many emotions, fears, assumptions, heartaches. The one lone bright, shining thing about my mom's death was that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she was ready. If I hadn't known that I don't know where I'd be now.

July 2005. My step-grandpa (my mom's stepdad) lost his fight with cancer this month. What started out as a small nodule on his jaw that was once removed, came back growing with a vengance. I think my Granny new from the beginning that this would be the thing to end Gene's life.

We're now at September 2008. My Granny (mom's mom) had been through so much in her life. She'd buried her parents, a brother, two husbands, a son, and a daughter. Her heart had been broken for a long time. But she loved God and knew he was in control. She'd been ready to go Home for quite a while. On the way home from my birthday weekend in St Louis I received the call from my dad. Granny had died in her sleep early that morning. I'm glad I wasn't in public when I got that call.

We have now arrived at today. I'm remembering being fired from a job in August of 2005. What a shock. I didn't see it coming. I still believe it happened out of spite. However, it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I was let go from my most recent job at the end of January. I knew this one was coming, but I didn't know when. I was already down to 15 hours a week. My work was just running out. There were no hard feelings when I left this job, and my former boss is willing to give me a shining reference at any place I go to work next.

So...I think it's safe to say that in my 37 years I've been through some "junk" (there's even more that I didn't list!!). But you know what...so have you and most all of the people we meet on the street every day. Sure, not everyone has lost a parent or been fired or been with someone as they took their last breath. However, each of us has stuff that we're dealing with. Stuff that the devil wants to use to get us down. He wants us down on ourselves, our spouse, our job, our children, our lives. He wants us so low that we're closer to him in hell than we are to God in Heaven.

If God hadn't been in my life through all these year's worth of things, I couldn't tell you today that I am in a better state of mind than I've EVER been. I've battled with depression, but God took it away and gave me His joy instead. He is able to do this for anyone who asks Him to! He wants to!

I think that the song "Bring the Rain" sums up this whole blog post for me. No, I don't desire to go through more tragedies in my life...I'm really not asking or begging to have more of them. But if my reaction to tragedy in life is the thing that brings someone else closer to God...then I'm willing to go through some more rain. I know that without Him I can do nothing, but with Him all things are possible!

"Bring The Rain"

I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of
The dark clouds that may loom above
Because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
By suffering Your destiny
So tell me what's a little rain
So I pray

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty!