It's a grey day: drizzling and misty, and somehow warm despite it all. I drove past the cemetery on the way home, and it looked like we imagine cemeteries should look: lonely and still as stone, the headstones drenched dark with water seeping into them. It should have been depressing and yet it wasn't. It was illuminating. It was alive. The bark of the trees was rich, the grass greener than in the bright of day, the flowers on the graves, dust free and vibrant. Not dull, but deepened; not darkened but brightened.
Because beyond the wet and dreary, that's what rain does. In the middle of grief, that's what living water does. It clears away and soaks in, re-awakens and renews. In the darkest days, it nurtures hope and faith. In the middle of our pain, it grows joy. We tend to think that only the sun can bring relief and light, and so we curse the rain and seek the sun. But sometimes the sun we seek is only found in the rain. Only found in that gentle wash of living water that mixes with our tears, and grows something new and beautiful from what we lay in the ground.
Because beyond the wet and dreary, that's what rain does. In the middle of grief, that's what living water does. It clears away and soaks in, re-awakens and renews. In the darkest days, it nurtures hope and faith. In the middle of our pain, it grows joy. We tend to think that only the sun can bring relief and light, and so we curse the rain and seek the sun. But sometimes the sun we seek is only found in the rain. Only found in that gentle wash of living water that mixes with our tears, and grows something new and beautiful from what we lay in the ground.