Real Showers of Blessing

I'm not sure what pulled me out of my room. The rain outside? Perhaps, but I'd already been out--taking garbage out and whatnot.

I'll have you know, that hasn't been normal.

I looked at the rain, listened to the wind. I filled my water bottle up, picked up a mirror that fell out of a window due to the extreme winds, and grabbed the guitar, sitting on the bench outside my room and playing random chords. I got into a song, "Gather the Roses" by Derrol and Cindy Sawyer. Sharon sang along with me while the winds picked up, growing more fierce by the moment. Sharon got up to retrieve the orchid from the porch, and I popped into my room to grab my camera. Weather such as this needed documentation.

I videoed the rain, Sharon standing beside me, talking about thunderstorms and tornadoes and the like. We noticed a sarong or something out in the rain, on the ground: "It must've blown off the line under the house." Sharon went out to pick it up.

But she stayed out there. I took some pictures of her standing there, hands under the waterfall pouring off the eaves. She mentioned how great it would be to just stand in the rain and let it soak her.

I grinned. "I've wanted to do that more than once. Just go stand in the rain and get wet."

Sharon let the water beat on her hands. "I'd be soaked in seconds." She looked up at the clouds. "But I might just do it anyway."

I laughed.

Then, she turned and said, "And you know, you could come join me instead of shooting me."

That's a novel idea. The camera clunked onto the floor and footsteps died away, headed towards the door.

I maneuvered down the slippery steps and as I got to my shoes at the bottom, wind and water such as I'd never been in the middle of before blasted me with considerable force. I walked only maybe 10 yards to dry ground, where Sharon was, and I already dripped.

Sharon laughed when she saw me and we stood, hands under the incessant pour from the eaves. "You could take a shower in this."

I stepped forward and let the stream beat on the top of my head for a few seconds before stepping back out into the downpour. Sharon followed."Hey, we should walk to the end of the driveway and back!"

The rest, as they say, is history.

When we walked back up to the porch, Thara Mark (one of the short-term missionaries who's been here working with his wife, Kim, for the past few months) stood there, talking to Harvey. He sported a knee-length, shiny blue poncho with a hood. He looked at Sharon and I, with no sort of protection from the elements, and asked, "Out for a shower?" We just laughed.

In dry clothes once again, I wrung my soaking shirt out through the open window on the side of the house. I grinned as I watched the water being squeezed from my clothing. Funny I didn't do something like this before. The rain still dripped from the eaves. Too bad no one at home got to experience this.

I hung my clothes up to dry and then entered my dark little room again. I sat on my bed...and did nothing. I realized that I really didn't want to be sitting in here--alone. Or in here at all. I got up to fill my water bottle up again. And returned. And sat. In the dark. In the silence. Alone.

Why?

That's a really good question.

I'm finding I don't want to be "stuck" in here anymore. I mean that. It's probably the first time I've felt that way since getting here. I recall going to YD and hiding in my room for months... Yes, it took months. It was January before I started really coming out. I got there in September. You do the math.

I got here in September. It's nearing the end of October. Only almost two months.

I call that improvement.

Never would have guessed that a thunderstorm would break a chain and made the prison walls to tremble, would you?

That's what you call a real shower of blessing.

 

The after results of our brief and highly saturating expedition to the end of the driveway and back.