The rain falls gently on the parched ground in my yard, plastering the fallen leaves to the driveway. I am like the brittle grass, reaching up to collect each precious drop. Oh, how my yard needed this respite from the drought! Oh, how I did!
The muck in the creek rinses clear and the dormant eggs lying there burst into life. Little minnows dart around my grandson’s feet as we wade together through two inches of water. Already the grass along the banks is turning green despite the October chill in the air. Amazing how even a little rain can revitalize the world and restore life.
I had put my garden to rest until spring. Pulled down the old fence to begin work on the new one. Pulled up most of my plants. What wasn’t killed by blight was scorched by heat and drained of life by drought. The garden was over for the year. Only laziness had left the basil plants in the ground, brown and leafless.
Or maybe it was a nudge from God that had me leave the basil plants there. Because He is using them to restore my hope and bring my dormant seeds of faith to life.
The basil plants are covered in new green leaves. Bright and fragrant, they stand in contrast to the brown of my garden and my yard. See what God’s life-giving rain can do! See what God’s live-giving love can do.
I have been parched, feeling drained by demands and decisions and lacking the Spirit’s rejuvenating inspiration. This has been a time of soldiering on, preserving in the small tasks, taking tiny bites in faith that one day the elephant will be gone. (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.) My quiet times have been just that – quiet. The grass had withered under the relentless sun and parched air.
As a deep longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Psalm 42:1-2
I train myself to give thanks for these times, times when my faith is put into action, when my roots can grow deep, when I can prove my perseverance. But what joy and relief when the rain comes!
Life revitalized, dormant ideas brought to life, dreams considered dead showing new signs of life. Each drop of the Spirit’s presence is an answered prayer, a call to life, invigorating, and restorative.
Perhaps we will have colors other than brown before fall morphs into winter. Perhaps I will get to make pesto once more this season. Hope – renewed by a little rain.
Perhaps you too have been feeling the drain of too much heat and too little water. Don’t hide yourself inside when the rain comes. Be like the brittle grass and reach out to catch each drop. Be like the dormant eggs that burst into life. Be like the basil plants bearing new leaves no matter how late in the season it is.
These expressions of life are made even more brilliant by the drab and dying environment around them. This may be your opportunity to show the world what water, the Spirit’s living water, can do.
Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that it is you. 1 Peter 3:15b.
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 1 John 3:1.
Perhaps this is your opportunity to be the green plant in the brown field.
Love in Christ, Betsy
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