Another rainy day ...

These past few weeks have had an abundance of rain to share with us and frankly, I’m tired of the gray! In south Florida there is a term for all this rain, it’s called “liquid sunshine”. But here in north Georgia, the sun is not sunshiny during the rain. It’s making me tired of the gray.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the rain. I am even grateful for the clouds and the cool temperatures. I’m just tired of all of the gray. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever felt the same way?

I have found that in life it is so much simpler when things are black or white, right or wrong, up or down … you get the idea. But when things start to blur, it is harder to make choices. Like when it rains. Do I really need to go out or can it wait until tomorrow? On one hand we need to balance the perceived need and on the other, our own wants. Sometimes it is easier than at other times.

While raising my young children if we ran out of milk or bread or diapers, that was an absolute need that far outweighed my wanting to stay at home where it was warm and dry. Now that I am older and my children do not live at home I can look in the fridge and think to myself, “Tomorrow is soon enough to pick up some milk.” My desire to stay warm and dry has won out against the need for milk. I’ll just change the menu for tonight.

Yet now I find that the choices aren’t as easy as they once were. Now I do not have the external guides that I once had and the choices, the decisions I must make are often more difficult. Now the choices and the issues I wrestle with are often blurred into matters that have the nuances of others lives besides my own. Now, I make decisions and choices on matters that have far-reaching implications. When I go out to the grocery store for my milk or bread I can not help but think – where did the food came from? who produced it? is the packaging recyclable? what of the child who is hungry tonight?

And it is still raining. But I see a touch of sun shining through!

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” ~ 1 Corinthians 13: 11-12