When it rains...

My head was resting on the cool pillow and my body began to relax in my sleeping bag with the lullaby of the river and the staccato drops of rain on the tent. I began to drift off to the wonderful world of dreamland when I was suddenly awakened by my fellow camper’s alarming news. “Hey, I think we have a leak in the tent.” With flashlights the four of us (Dad, Asher, Bryce and myself), pulled up sleeping bags and searched the tent of why we had puddles of water forming on the floor. As we pressed on the tent floor, I noticed it jiggled and bounced just like a water bed, and the reality hit, our tent was now pitched over a large puddle and we were beginning to sink. With a shovel and a couple of flashlights we tried to drain the small lake under our tent, but with little success, and as we shivered in the midnight rain, soaking wet, the choices were to either sleep in the car or go home. The boys and I chose to go home leaving my poor father to defend the camp through the downpour.


In our wet camping experience I learned a few things…sometimes when weathermen say it will rain in Oregon, it actually does, and I now have a literal experience to back up the idiom, “When it rains it pours”. This idiom means that after a long pause, or season with little or no rain (or whatever it may be), then it will happen in large amounts all at once. After a long stretch for us (60+ days with no rain), the heavens opened up and we were blessed with a record setting day of rain on Tues., Sept. 7th, our one full day of camping. We initially thought it was a miracle that we nearly had the entire campground to ourselves, but we soon realized, the others were simply smarter, wiser and certainly dryer.

Life lessons can help prepare us for our next adventure down the road, whether it may be camping, raising a family, running a business, paying bills, losing weight, etc., but we do have a weatherman who can give us vital information of what action we should take, or caution we should be aware of. We have a forecast of our present circumstance that will guide us to be better prepared, avoid unnecessary hardship and pain, and see what may lie ahead on our life journey. This life weatherman is the Holy Spirit who is our guide, our counselor, our teacher and who leads us to the Truth. He points us first of all to Jesus, our hope and the foundation of our faith, and also to the practical Biblical Truths of how we are to live, interact with others, and submit to becoming more Christlike in who we are.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” – Isaiah 30:21

As we experienced camping, ignoring the weatherman and deciding to go with the forecast of rain, lead to a soaked, near Noah experience as our canvas Ark began to float, then sink. “When it rains, it pours”, and unfortunately in life we find ourselves flooded with disappointment, hardship and pain by our decisions and actions, because we failed to either prepare for, or listen to the caution of what will come. Tune in to the one voice behind you, saying “This is the way; walk in it.”