You Bring the Rain

The following is a prayer I wrote during a solitude retreat I am currently taking in the Cangrejal River Valley near our home in Honduras. I have been struggling with insomnia for several months now, and Darwin and I decided I needed a three-night getaway to rejuvenate spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically after so many recent changes in this last year-and-a-half so that I may return home with renewed energy, vision, and joy.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Yahweh,

Without Your power I can literally do nothing. I am like the shallow, dirty waters of the Cangrejal River during the dry season. Although I try again and again, each time making a determined resolution to be better, I cannot even love and respect my own husband and family without impatience, stress, and a rebellious spirit bubbling up from within me. I weep for the souls of my students at the Episcopal School, yet I stand powerless to truly transform their lives, convince them that You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Sitting here on a hammock perched high above the Cangrejal River, I can hear it roaring now that the rainy season has arrived, a powerful symbol of Your capacity to transform, strengthen, give life. I already explored the small bed and breakfast’s property, trying to get a glimpse of Your majesty revealed through the renewed and impressive flow of the Cangrejal’s crystalline waters, but with so many trees blocking my view I must be satisfied with merely hearing its roar, hearing Your whisper that that is what you want to do to me, if I allow it – transform me from a shallow, dirty, struggling soul into a powerful source of your strength, beauty and glory, purifying me with the rain of Your spirit, bringing life and energy to what was previously slow, mediocre, worn-out. Transform me, Yahweh. Literally in my own power I cannot love well, cannot open the eyes of my basketball girls or gifted and talented kids to see Your Truth, cannot raise up a generation of Christ followers if I myself am limping along, always impatient, exhausted, and clinging to the little spiritual understanding that I possess, hoping that my words and example will be enough. Carry me on Your waters so that I may rest in Your majesty. A river does not make its own waters flow, does not generate its own energy – You bring the rain. Bring me rain, Lord.

The Cangrejal River

One thought on “You Bring the Rain”

HI Jennifer, A friend shared the llyrics from a song called “Blessings” by Laura Story. I thought of you and am compelled to share it (below). I struggle as you do with loving better “loving hard” and feeling powerless to transform the lives of those around me………including my own family. Im thankful that God honors our intentions and pitful attempts to follow Him. I nneed to remind myself that I will never get it right, that I fall soooo short. I must get out of HIs way and allow Him to work through me despite me. I want to encourage you to stay in God’s spiritual hammock! Let him support you. Let Him cultivate the seeds of love and faith you plant in your students, BB players and your children. As you limp along, please know that your words and example (Your WORK) will never “be enough” We may never see the fruit and we must be ok with that.

All is well here………we are on Baby Watch. Courtney is due any day and Caroline soon to follow.

“Blessings” (the song)

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believe

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It’s not our home

‘Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise