Paralyzed by Rain

It's rainy and cold.  Being from a place with average rainfall of only 12 inches a year, rain drives me inside.  I have a friend who grew up on the Oregon coast and he once commented about how people here are paralyzed by the rain.  It's true!  I'm paralyzed!  We just stay inside and wait for it to dry out.

Except that we can't sit inside!  The first frost is predicted for this evening so we are bringing in the last of the tender harvest — tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and okra. 

The garage is getting fuller and fuller of stuff that needs attention but we're spending all our time getting stuff into the garage and not any further.  The piles of squash I set out to dry in the sun have been rained on, so we brought them in to dry off.

Because we are from such a dry climate, we call all liquid precipitation rain.  My nine-year-olds commented that we can tell from the chickens how hard it's raining.  They will stay out digging around in drizzle, but when it really starts coming down, they congregate under the coop. Even the chickies know to stay out of the rain!

The apples we have left to can are getting softer and softer.  I'm not yet recovered from last week's canning day, but we have to get going.  Today we started another batch.  It's a lot of work, but we love all things apples — fresh apples, applesauce, apple butter, dried apples, apple pie.  We're going to need more.

This working when I don't want to is part of normal life.  I've been an adult long enough to just plow through it.  It reminds me of God's presence in the everyday, even without the high emotions of mountain-top experiences.  It's easy to sense God in the midst of an intense retreat or an inspiring conference.  But in everyday life, the low emotions of valley experiences, God is just as present.  In these times of working just because it needs to be done not because I want to, I remember how God is with me whether I know it or not.  God is with me whether I want God or not.  God is just with me because of what God wants.