Who Does Great Things

“The wise man in the storm prays to God,

not for safety from danger,
but deliverance from fear.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes it's enough just to make it through the week.

No fanfare or triumph or big story to share - just closing in on those last moments that signal a final countdown to the end of the Friday work day.

3...2...1.

Time to go.

It's been a rough week. All I want to do is get home to my best guy, hunker down with him, and wait out the storm that's predicted to hit this weekend. How fitting. Seems like this whole week has been a raging storm we've had to fight blindly through.

This morning, I literally drove into storm clouds on my way to work. Felt familiar.

If you've ever read my blog before, you'll know I have a nearly spiritual connection to the rain. I never dislike it. (Not even on our wedding day.) I'm one of the few people who feels a slight disappointment when the sun comes back and shows it's face after days and days of downpour. I would do well in Seattle. Something deep inside me resonates with the essential nature of rain - the feeling that the world is being drenched and cleansed.

I like that.

I wouldn't be so arrogant as to compare our situation to Job's. So deep and intense was the pain he went through, I doubt my spirit could bear it. But he lived as one who has felt broken, overwhelmed, and spent. That's how I feel today. I take comfort in these words of Eliphaz the Temanite (despite his other rather misguided Theology) to Job in his hour of despair:

"But as for me, I would seek God,
And to God I would commit my cause--
Who does great things, and unsearchable,
Marvelous things without number.
He gives rain on the earth,
And sends waters on the fields."
(Job 5:8-10)

Today, especially, I appreciate the Gift.