Learning To Dance In the Rain

For months now my life and the lives of my family has seemed to fall apart despite all our attempts to super glue it back together again. Almost like a crazy scene out of the old Hollywood screwball movies you know? Gluing everything but the vase which needs fixing right? Ironic isn’t it? In spite of the seriousness of our situation life seems to be rewriting this tragedy into some sort of comical drama. A clear contradiction in words I would say! Crying and laughing, laughing and crying, coming, going, to be, not to be…oh I give up already which is it?

Six months ago life came to a dramatic holt for us. Everything in life we knew or felt was solid secure came crashing down, pulled apart by the seams. And I mean everything! I am not embarrassed to admit I have had a few moments when I have asked myself what God’s purpose in all this misery could possibly be. No I haven’t yelled and screamed at Him and I haven’t lost my faith BUT I have come close if I am to be completely honest. I have fallen to my knees, paced the floors in the middle of the night calling His name, and still on most days I hear nothing but silence, almost as if He can’t hear me.

Seriously to think as my body has grown weaker the storm above us has grown stronger. Almost as if the surge hitting my body bounces back up toward the dark sky drawing each and every storm within a 100 mile radius down on top of us day in and day out. You would think enough is enough right? I mean our troubles have multiplied from the loss of a job to the loss of our health insurance but still the rains come. Every day is a struggle and every day I still lift my eyes to the heavens searching, praying for some peace from the storm above us. I am seriously ready for the Maker of Heaven and Earth to stretch out His hands and say” Peace be still!”

I would say there are times things seem almost hysterically funny when I think how twisted and out of control life seems right now. Life following the aftershock can sometimes be worse than the first strike itself I believe. Cancer taught me that one for sure. Hum… maybe this is a missing piece to ‘Christina’s Topsy Turvry Jigsaw Puzzle’. Maybe I am to draw from my experience with cancer in order to pull us through this struggle?

OK I can live with that. After all I have lived through breast cancer and lived to tell the tale. I am here today among the living, able to pace the floors and cry out to the heavens right? Yes indeed I am alive and every day I am thankful for this blessing because there is none greater than the gift of life.

So I will learn to dance in the rain, no matter how hard it may come down hitting my head time and time again. The storm may rage above us, the rains may fall, the winds may blow and the surge may even over take us but the one truth I know for certain is the sun will shine again…eventually anyway.

The truth is this: the sky is always above us and once the sunlight breaks through the storm clouds will pass. Maybe right now I can’t hear God speaking to me just yet because He is not ready to reveal what is held in the calm after the storm has passed. No, I don’t yet understand why we have suffered so much but I do know this: just as I had to come to terms with breast cancer, dancing day in and day out with the beast, I now too need to learn to dance in the rain.

Gene Kelley sang of singing in the rain, what was it he said? Oh yes, “I'm laughing at clouds so dark up above the suns in my heart and I'm ready for love. Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place come on with the rain I've a smile on my face.” So I say go ahead let the rain pour down, wash over my face, because I will not be left empty handed when this storm passes. No this journey is not an easy one, rocky at best but it is our journey for better or worse, rich or for poor, in sickness in health.

This is our dance, even if it is here in the falling rain. Bitterness may try to push in around us but I promise you no matter how beat down we may become grace and love continues to hold us together as a family even if we are left holding a broken vase and super glued to the chair.

Sure the path of least resistant may look tempting, but then where would we be? I don’t understand why life brings pain and uncertainty but I do know this: While it is true pain holds no mercy sometimes the pain does hold grace. Maybe, just maybe, the pain life brings each of us isn’t so much about the hurt as much as it is about the journey, the dance and the beauty inside the clearing just ahead of us beyond the trees. Maybe it’s about overcoming the struggles, finding the victory in life’s everyday joys before we come out of the darkness and into the sun!

Listen… do you hear the music playing? Listen carefully and I think you may just hear the beauty of the rain in your ear. Yes, even as one door closes my friend, I know another one will open again. But until then we have this dance for another day and so we will continue to dance in the rain! After all Tiffany Wilson (2007 It's My Life conference ) is right, “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about dancing in the rain."

Christina