INTO EACH LIFE SOME RAIN MUST FALL

My forever home, Louisiana, has been inundated by torrential rains this week---and it's not over yet.  It has rained more than 10 inches almost everywhere in the state every day.  The ground has become so saturated it cannot hold another drop and rivers, ponds, and lakes have formed where they were never intended to be.  For a period of time, the state was effectively cut off as the interstates had to be closed.  It is a desperate and dangerous situation for my beloved state of origin.

A what point did the rains go from life sustaining, drought ending, spring showers to dangerous currents sweeping everything in its path away?  How does something vital to life turn into a killer?  

A spring shower is a good thing--but when that shower turns into a storm--and that storm refuses to release its hold and continues to drop hour after hour of rain upon the state---it becomes not only a property destroyer---but potentially deadly.  

When warned of impending danger---please evacuate--don't chance the risk.  When driving down the road  turn around when water is over the road--don't chance the risk.  Don't bury your head in the sands of denial--don't chance the risk in the vain attempt to protect your property.  A sad and horrid thing to loose your home---but how much worse to loose your life.

So pray with me for my home state, for safety of those in peril, for comfort for those with great loss, and the good judgement to flee when necessary and turn around and take the long way home when best.

And the sure assurance---that God sees it all --will comfort us in our pain--and provide our every need.  As sure as the rain has come--the sun will once again shine.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow says it best in this poem-

The Rainy Day

It is cold, and dark, and dreary

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,

And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained;

Genesis 8:2