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It has been raining forever in West Virginia. 

People are depressed.

Summer is soggy.

Pools are green.

Spirits are dampened.

Flooding is an every other day occurrence.

The long-awaited dog days of summer are still waiting to be had.

I read a very angry rant this morning on social media about it.

WE WANT OUR SUMMER BACK!!!!

I visited my daughter in Ohio.

It was raining there too.

Driving On

As we drove toward the ominous skyline, I looked at my youngest sitting shotgun beside me.

“We goin’ in there?”

“Yup.”

“P Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sidney?”

“Yup.”

(We’re still speaking in Nemo, even though Sawyer (number one grandson) has left that movie behind for “Cars” and “Wreck it Ralph” (“Ree-ree Roush”).

In my Bible reading this morning, I ran across a passage that triggered a memory of an old hymn.  Can you guess which one?

     “And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.”  (Ezekiel 34:26)  

Yep. “Showers of blessing“.

“There shall be showers of blessing:

  This is the promise of love;

  There shall be seasons refreshing,

  Sent from the Savior above.

  Showers of blessing,

  Showers of blessing we need;

  Mercy-drops round us are falling,

  But for the showers, we plead.

  There shall be showers of blessing

  Precious reviving again;

  Over the hills and the valleys,

  The sound of abundance of rain.

  There shall be showers of blessing;

Send them upon us, O Lord!

  Grant to us now a refreshing;

  Come, and now honor Thy Word.

  There shall be showers of blessing;

  O that today they might fall,

  Now as to God we’re confessing,

  Now as on Jesus we call!

  There shall be showers of blessing;

  If we but trust and obey;

  There shall be seasons refreshing,

  If we let God have His way.

Showers of blessing,

  Showers of blessing we need;

  Mercy-drops round us are falling,

  But for the showers, we plead.”

~Daniel W. Whittle, 1883

Remembering the Voices:

I remember the voices, young and old, lifted in praise in our little country church. 

So many memories of the folks where I grew up, their stories intertwined with this hymn.

I recall Georgia Williams, elderly mother and grandmother, who bore eleven children, lost her husband and endured many trials while waiting for her children to come to Christ.  She was always faithful to the church, and every time she stood to give a testimony, she talked about how every time she read through the Bible, she learned something new.

Looking Back

I think about that a lot, now that I’ve come through my first full year of reading through the Scriptures, and am over halfway done with my second.  Words leaping out at me that I never seemed to notice last time around.

Showers of blessing.

All around us, mercy drops are falling.

Do you see them?  Have you felt those blessed, wet, refreshing raindrops of mercy today?

“Grant to us now a refreshing.  Come and now honor Thy Word.”

Did you still yourself before God this morning in awe of His Word?

“There shall be seasons refreshing if we let God have His way.”

Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way. 

In this fashion, I can receive the mercy drops,

and

The showers.

My Desire:

I don’t want to be like the Israelites, complaining about too much manna.

I want to see those showers of blessing through my discomfort.

Lord, let me be a receptive vessel to those showers today.

Those interruptive showers that seem to bog me down.

My feet getting weighed down in the marsh of the day.

The showers appointed by You

may not look like a blessing to me.

Not my agenda.  It’s not my list. 

Also, it’s not my weather forecast.

But Thine be done.

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.”  (Psalm 1:3)