Sometimes it takes rain to answer the prayer.

Its been crazy rainy lately. Perfect setting for writing. I drove home last night in the rain, observing the dark rain clouds over the city, it put me in a gloomy mood and reminded me of the change of weather in my life. On my way home i took this picture...and i realized that the sun had been shining all day....while it may be raining, the sun still shines. It may look dark and stormy over my head, but the sun never ceases to come out.

In the last couple of months, my heart has been heavy. I have been in transition. I guess you can say i asked for it. I asked God to change my heart. I asked God to remove people in my life that weren't supposed to be there. I was asking for a change of weather.... But I don't think i really wanted Him to make it rain. I wanted a warning at least, a forecast on how to prepare.(even though, looking back now, i got ample warning in the actions of people, but thats another post...) To me, instead it just began to rain, and the clouds lingered, and became darker and darker. Just when i was about to give in to the gloom, I was reminded that He is still there. On the other side of the gloom. Smiling. Waiting. Loving me. I came to KNOW Psalm 30:5...

For his anger is but for a moment; His favor is for a life-time: Weeping may tarry for the night, But joy cometh in the morning.

Did you catch that? His favor is for a lifetime? That means that regardless of how it seems, His favor, His sunshine is constant. I am coming forth to my morning. I am expecting the warmth of His smile, soon. Its there, its never left. Its peeking through the clouds. I still have His favor, its just raining right now.

Even though its scary, and unnerving to ask God for change. He supplies us with the faith in the promise that while it may take rain to answer our prayer, sunshine doesn't fail to shine. the answer is on the other side of your change.

Have you ever asked God for change? How and what was on the other side of your change of weather?

i want it to show.

i found IT on the top of my head this morning!....unfortunately it was not the first one i have found...and in times past i have plucked that bad boy out of my head swiftly almost as soon as it grew...Not today. I left it to glow beside my darker roots of hair. I left it and watched it Beaming at me....yes, a gray hair! I chuckled and suggested something to myself. "Is it not a sign of maturity?" "a sign of age?" I think its funny how much we hate the "signs" of age, but we want all the benefits of it...we want the responsibility, success, experience, we want the power, we want the access to the world we were neglected in our teen years and early twenties...but we don't want the evidence of our aging...the wrinkles, the grays?

...as im approaching the end of my twenties. And as i look at the very evident sign, my gray hair, I am EMBRACING what is coming....because I do want ALL that age has to offer because I want people to know that with my age comes a lot of wisdom...

I cant wait to wake up one day, gray haired, slip into my robe, go downstairs, to find my early morning hubby making us coffee, sitting at the breakfast nook...giddy.... while we wait for our grandkids.. we will feel like children at Christmas only it will be because we will realize the precious gifts our children have been to us, and what a legacy the both of us gray haired individuals have to look back on. We wont be able hold back tears remembering the 30 years we spent learning about ourselves without each other and now seeing the fruit of our lives together....I want THAT age to show...the best thing for me will be that I wont be able to keep the secrets of all the shopping i had done for my grandkids ( because THAT will never change =)!

In the pursuit of that, i want all the wisdom acquired through years of seeking God through His word, through books, blogs, sunday sermons, conferences, and a life chalk full of failures, victories, heartbreaks, truth, love, anger, risks and embarrassing moments, painful realities and like today, the looks in the mirror finding new signs of maturity in a gray hair.

I want all that friendships offer, I want to embrace all the wisdom learned when change made me surrender all i thought i knew, I want the legacy that family has left me, more than anything, i want what God wants me to have in this lifetime...because if having it all means more grays and more aches, then i want it all. And I want it to show.....

I welcome you age. I welcome you grays. I welcome you wisdom.