Celebrate the gift of rain.
My retreat leader
This time last week I was at a silent retreat, the theme of which was I Will Give You Rest.
Before we were invited into the silence, we dined together on this delicious cacophony of vegetables. The things the cook does with veggies is simply mind blowing. Need to heal your relationship with food? Go see my homegirl Rachel and in 3 days, she’ll have you rethinking your own thoughts, inviting you to think about God’s abundant nutrients hidden in food– real food, that grows out of the soil he made, bathed by the sun, hanging off of vines… But I do-Jo.
Earlier in the day, prior to the retreat, I wrote this beautiful piece on drought and rain, The Blessings of Drought: Transforming Hardships into Growth. It was sunny all day, but clouds and rain moved in and joined us that evening. The pang of the rain water was like a full symphony– soft and sweet, loud and jarring, and everything in between. So while the retreat leader ushered us into silence under the tappings of rain on what sounded like a tin roof but I’m sure wasn’t, she reminded us to “celebrate the gift of rain”.
It was for me. That sentence, small and full, was entirely for me. I wrote it down so I could return to it. I believe in a lot of things, but coincidences aren’t one of them. No, I believe in God. A God so big and caring that he’d drop breadcrumbs of love for me, calling me to him, ensuring that I know it’s him. Some people also call them God winks. It’s me, I’m also some people.
And now, on my third and last day here, I see a book spotlighted on the bookshelf, Dance in the Desert. Coincidence? NO!
Excerpt from my journal while at the I Will Give You Rest Silent Retreat
There’s a part 2 coming to this piece. In part because I know that life isn’t binary, though we’d love to pretend. It’d be easier that way. *cough* “Easier.”
Some plants thrive in drought! Some animals, too! Some are drought resistant. Resilient. So yes, they need water, we all do! But don’t miss the beauty of the drought. Don’t miss what it’s here to teach us. Don’t not honor the dryness just because you want rain to come. NO! In a season of drought, honor it. Rejoice in it. Trouble don’t last always, but tough people do. So in the drought, be grateful for the rain that inevitably came before it and that will inevitably come after it, too.
It’s as if we want to believe there is no water in the drought. But even in the drought, water is present. Life is present. Abundance is present.
And aren’t rain and drought equal opposites? Aren’t they both offering an abundance of their own unique kind and choosing? Glass half full verses half empty.
Not surprisingly, I read the book, Dance in the Desert. Surprisingly to me, it was a children’s book, or maybe not, written in 1988. It “describes an encounter in the desert when the animals came to a caravan campfire and danced with a child because fear was absent.”
Here I am writing about drought as fear, and here this book is writing about the joy, freedom, and fun that happens in a physical desert with the absence of fear because a child was present.
A Grateful Heart: Closing Prayer of Thanks and Reflection
God, thank you that there are no coincidences. Thank you for metaphors and symbolism and writing that connects us to you. Thank you that you are the Author of Life. Thank you that we get to see, experience and witness heaven on earth through our writing, through our own being, and through other people’s being. Thank you for eyes that see and ears that hear. Thank you for silence, for solitude, for quiet, and for deep knowing. Thank you that we are enough in you. Thank you for the gift of perspective taking, the gift of rain, and the gift of drought. Thank you that we can rejoice regardless of the season we are in. Thank you for seasons that nothing– good, bad, beautiful and ugly– lasts forever. Thank you for time, for grace, and for love. Thank you for words and hearts and minds and spirits that heal. Thank you for being. Thank you for blessing. Thank you for abundance. Thank you for lack. Thank you for completion. Amen and so it is.
Small Steps: Embrace Who You Are Divinely Becoming
Right now, in this very moment, you are worthy of every good, beautiful, noble, and sacred thing in the world! Not 20 or 80 pounds from now or when your finances are in order or when you have your dream job or when everything is “perfect”. You are worthy now.
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