and then came the rain
We were walking slowly along the road with potholes, toddlers, and rambunctious kids pausing our steps and our conversation. Stopping in front of my neighbor's house, we were in the middle of a sentence when giant raindrops began splashing down around us. She ran to get her laundry and I hurried two doors down to my house. By the time I reached the front door I could hear the raindrops pinging on the tin roof. The rain came in torrents as it is so oft to do and for the first time the sound had a different meaning.
If you ask TCKs (Third Culture Kids---people who grew up in a country different than the one on their passport) what their favorite sound is you will frequently receive the answer "the sound of rain on a tin roof." It's a sound that represents, for so many of us, our childhood. The sound that can turn a rainstorm into a cacophony. I can't tell you how bewildering it was for me in the U.S. to go outside and realize it was raining, when I hadn't heard a thing inside. Here, a heavy rain drowns out anything and everything. Teachers raise their voices to a shout to be heard. Movies have to be paused because the volume won't stretch any louder.
It's a comforting sound. The sound of rain on a roof means that water is pouring into the rainwater tank and that gardens are being nourished. I'm safe and dry inside.
For the first time, my perspective was different. Last week, I was talking with a friend who told me about a family she knows in a nearby village whose grass roof is full of holes. She said that when it rains the water pours into the house rather than off the roof and that they have had to sleep under umbrellas. So when the rain came pouring down in the middle of the day, I started thinking about this couple and wondering if everything they had was now being soaked in the rain.
And I started thinking about how something can have completely different meanings to those with shelter and those without shelter and how true that can be in our spiritual lives as well. Something looks completely different when I am safe within my Father's arms.
I hope I never take my shelter for granted; that I thank God for His provision and ask His protection over those without shelter. And I thank God for being a shelter against the storms of life. When the rain comes, I will praise the LORD!
If you ask TCKs (Third Culture Kids---people who grew up in a country different than the one on their passport) what their favorite sound is you will frequently receive the answer "the sound of rain on a tin roof." It's a sound that represents, for so many of us, our childhood. The sound that can turn a rainstorm into a cacophony. I can't tell you how bewildering it was for me in the U.S. to go outside and realize it was raining, when I hadn't heard a thing inside. Here, a heavy rain drowns out anything and everything. Teachers raise their voices to a shout to be heard. Movies have to be paused because the volume won't stretch any louder.
It's a comforting sound. The sound of rain on a roof means that water is pouring into the rainwater tank and that gardens are being nourished. I'm safe and dry inside.
For the first time, my perspective was different. Last week, I was talking with a friend who told me about a family she knows in a nearby village whose grass roof is full of holes. She said that when it rains the water pours into the house rather than off the roof and that they have had to sleep under umbrellas. So when the rain came pouring down in the middle of the day, I started thinking about this couple and wondering if everything they had was now being soaked in the rain.
And I started thinking about how something can have completely different meanings to those with shelter and those without shelter and how true that can be in our spiritual lives as well. Something looks completely different when I am safe within my Father's arms.
I hope I never take my shelter for granted; that I thank God for His provision and ask His protection over those without shelter. And I thank God for being a shelter against the storms of life. When the rain comes, I will praise the LORD!
I agree so much with your second paragraph! Not only loving the sound of the rain in the tropics, but also being so confused after moving to college and having to look outside to find out if it was raining. Then I discovered that even looking outside does you no good when it's brightly sunny and 35 degrees! That took some getting used to too. :-)
ReplyDeleteI remember being in a play in our tin-roofed meeting house in highschool and the rain started coming down - backstage our director told us "If it comes to it, abandon subtlety and yell!" :-)
~Ruth