Rain Dance

Psalm 28:7 -- "My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song."

Rain Dance by Kelly Babb Dalton

In my  favorite reading chair I look beyond of the glass french doors to the screened in porch out back and wonder where the owl couple goes when the weather gets like this. My spirits seem heavy laden with the pelting rain and though I look up into the sky beyond the tree line, I see nothing but more roiling clouds. 

Some people FEEL the weather. I am one of them. After so many days of constant rain, I feel the soggy inside of my heart like a damp sponge left on the kitchen sink.

Sigh.

But though the sky is streaked with gray clouds pregnant with fat rain drops, the leaves on the oak trees flit wildly in the wind. The grass seems to glow with a healthy green and the Virginia Creeper vines dance a happy jig to a fast-paced rhythm I cannot hear. All the green around me seems to be throwing a party. My African Lilies sway back and forth like the members of a praise Choir and my orange tree shakes it's heavy limbs bursting with hundreds of green baby oranges.

They are dancing.

In the rain.

BECAUSE of the rain.

Were it not for the gusts of tropical winds and the rain falling from the sky the leaves would be still. Looking up at the sun. Waiting for the next rainfall. They cannot dance on their own. And though their bright broad leaves move along with the face of the sun as it travels across the sky, they can not shake and shimmy without the storms. 

Indeed, they cannot live without the heavy Florida sub-tropical rains and the winds that blow the sea breeze in from the oceans.

I thank the Lord for the rain. I thank him for the soggy grass and the rushing torrents that over-flow the gutters, leaving some streets flooded and large puddles in the parking lots. I thank the Lord for bright colored rain boots worn by enthusiastic children and colorful umbrellas with comic characters splashed all over them.

My heart leaps for JOY - for I am a child of God.

As I move away from the windows I hum to myself - cleaning house to a fast-paced rhythm that others cannot hear.