Encouraging Words, April 29, 2013

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...
It's about learning how to dance in the rain.
- Vivian Greene

Ain’t that the truth, Sister?! If it’s not one thing it’s another. You could go on and on with all the little sayings in life, but one thing is sure, we are always trying to get through all the little and big obstacles in life and there are LOTS of them at times. Hence the Encouraging Words!

Dancing in the rain seems to be the norm these days. I’m sure it’s because I’m getting, ahem… a little older and know about more things than when I was a carefree kid just glad it was finally warm and sunny outside!  My hubs and I have decided that what makes us crabby as adults is the wear and tear on us as we have navigated so many years into middle age and have weathered several storms already. In our humanness we are bound to get a little weary and worn from those storms.

But maybe the whole point of getting older is a test to see just how long you can go in life without caving into crabbiness!  I mean this whole blog is about being Young, Fun and Catholic!  I personally think it’s my Catholic faith which helps keep me young and fun and not wanting to give up on hope and trust in the Lord to see us through all the rain.

And rain is good, it waters our souls, it gives us things to be grateful for, because without the trials in life we wouldn’t know we had it so good as kids! It’s the looking back that makes you realize how blessed you have been, lucky and full of God’s love.  Sometimes when you are standing in the middle of the rain storm you realize that life is about rain storms, there are many and sometimes they are flooding, but you can always count on faith to help you paddle about.

My family has a funny story about weathering the pouring rain. About ten years ago we were putting an addition onto our house. During the construction process they had to tear off part of the roof to connect it to the new roof. With the rafters in place all they had to do was lay down the plywood and shingle it. But along came a great black cloud and to this day I honestly don’t know what the workers were thinking aside from, “Let’s get off this roof from the lightning” because they left our house without any protection from the approaching storm, it was open to the rain without a tarp, without the plywood or anything to keep the rain from getting inside.

My husband happened to come home for a late lunch at that moment and it was a good thing too because the skies had opened up and it began pouring, right into our kitchen, our bedroom and in the basement which was carpeted.

I was working as a school secretary at the time and he called me, I grabbed our kids and raced home to help bail water.  The kids got basement duty and my hubs and I struggled in the ensuing storm to nail plastic tarps in place over the openings in the roof.  I have never been so drenched in my life. It was raining so hard it was washing the contact lenses out of my eyes!  My hubs was on a ladder in a shirt, dress slacks, tie and his good shoes nailing down plastic. When we finished that there was so much water on the open subfloor he had to drill holes into the wood to let it drain out.

The kids were grabbing towels sopping up water and putting them through the dryer to use again. It was a family effort!  Afterwards we had some ruined wood flooring in the kitchen, a wet carpet in the basement and a few choice words for the contractor.

Now as we look back it’s funny, but it surely was not a laughing matter when our entire house was at risk of flooding.  But we learned a lesson that day and ever since keep a handy supply of tarp around in case anything needs covering before a rainstorm.

It’s those lessons we learn in life about weathering storms, usually not quite so literally, that help us learn trust and keep us moving forward.  If you can dance in the rain, you will come out of it okay. And the help of family and friends most certainly is important. And my Catholic faith teaches me that no matter what happens God is there with you. Because of original sin bad stuff happens, but God is still there to bail you out!

So don’t get old and crabby! You can’t stop aging, or bad things happening in life, but you CAN change your attitude about all that stuff!  If you can dance in the rain, you can suffer through the storms knowing heaven is still in front of us, waiting to makes us happy!