Good & Expectations

Dad says Denver is a tenth of an inch away from tying the rainfall record for June. In the 16 years I have lived in Colorado, this is the most rain I can remember. A few weeks ago, there were many days in a row with reports of tornadoes. Last Friday I looked out the window and all of a sudden there was rain. No sooner did I say so than the tornado sirens went off, sounding warning that a possible tornado had been noted on the radar. My three sisters and I ran out the front door, looked quickly, then turned back around to grab cameras and come back, hoping the bit of swirling cloud above us would produce the elusive funnel cloud that haunts my dreams but has never made an appearance in my real life. No luck. After blowing rain hard into my jeans, the storm fizzled. Thus ended a string of days fulfilling the pattern of sunny mornings and stormy afternoons.

For on Saturday, there were no clouds in the sky. I spent most of the day baking for a Pigfest the next evening, but when I looked out the kitchen window, the green of the “grass” seemed to be glowing, and a more-than-a-color blue from the sky dipped into my very presence. During sunset I was out, rejoicing in the light on the clouds and the projecting pink of flowers in bushes along the road. “Everything looks so bright today,” I commented. Mom said it was the first day in a while that the sun had shown in the afternoon. How strange that I would notice the difference.

Yet I love the rain, and didn’t miss the brightness. Just the life-color struck me when the sun highlighted them.

Sometimes I go for good, even if it isn’t my favorite. I’m trying to hearken daily to the voice of gratitude.

Am I ever disappointed when a party doesn’t go like I imagine? Not usually. My way isn’t the only good way. I like to watch in awe as people dazzle me with difference, defying expectation. Let alone God. Don’t I like to watch God’s work surprise me, spinning me like a dancer in His trusted arms?

When life isn’t as I expected, but is still good, the call is to rejoice in that. On those days when the light seems to be birthed in each flower and cloud and blade of grass, how grand the festival! Golden days when friends surround me, laughing and talking and playing and praying – praise my Father in Heaven, how blessed I am!

For the LORD God is a sun and shield;

the LORD will give grace and glory;

no good thing will He withhold

from those who walk uprightly.

– Psalm 84:11

To God be all glory.