You always hear that after the rain, there will be sunshine. Sometimes it's used as a metaphor for after the bad times, the good will always come again. But does light need darkness in order to be light? Light could not be defined if it weren't for the knowledge of darkness. Scientifically, maybe, but when talking about God, it's not true. God's love, God's light, all that He is, preceded darkness, hate, sin. God just loves us, with or without the sin. So I've always told myself that after the rain comes sunshine, as if the rain were a bad thing, the villain. Today reminded me that it can be the other way around too. Heat, sunshine, gives life and energy, but too much heat burns, scathes, can make things die. At this point it's the cooling rain that brings life, relief. After the heat wave this week so many plants turned yellow. They're panting, tired, and ready for a change. Then today the steady rain came to take them out of their misery. Hurrah, our grass won't die! Sunshine and rain, the good times and the bad, are all part of life. God has given each a role to restore parts of our life, even though we will not understand or even recognize it most of the time. Perhaps instead of saying to someone, "You're my sunshine after the rain," as a blessing, it should be "You're my rain after the sunshine."
Was feeling kind of down and tired this week and wrote a poem. The Title is "But,"It's kind of sad but hopeful at the same time. The hope comes from knowing that my hope is not in myself, in the people or the world. The hope is my hope that I will hope in Christ alone. "In Christ alone, my hope is found."
But,
You feel so far away
Like the light at the end of a tunnel, but
I’m on the other side
and I can’t move,
Move to be with you.
I want to be in Eden
Where it was all right in space and time,
And the world as we knew it
Stood still in its perfection.
This sadness weighs me down,
A shadow that has volume, shape, a life of its own, but
I can’t move it,
Move it from my side.
Why must I worry,
Why so downcast oh my soul?
I wish
I could be happy, but
If only it was so easy.
Is it so easy?
We were made to love you, but
sometimes it feels hard.
I can’t bring myself to open the book,
Your book.
A book of joy and pain and hope,
A book of You.
But, so many buts,
Excuses, lies, vicious lies
We tell ourselves.
We—a colony of lost people
Some are found but seem lost again,
Wandering blindly on a path that is marked but
Our heads are in the clouds,
Stormy clouds,
and we can’t see.
So I wait for the storm to pass
For the haziness to give way to light,
For my shadow companion to de-personify.
For these buts to be for me, not against me.
Waiting for:
I once was lost, but
now I’m found.
Was blind, but
Now I see.
