Day 17: a Little Rain Won’t Hurt Ya

“For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:45

Not long ago, Missy and I had a posterior-numbing twelve-hour road trip returning home from a wonderful women’s conference in south Alabama. Of course, it should’ve only been seven hours, but we made one rather lengthy pit stop in Troy, Alabama, to eat at Crowe’s (which has been serving the best fried chicken since I went to undergrad at Troy University 30+ years ago!). Oh, and I was also not letting my polite—albeit completely unimpressed—child get out of this trip without walking around Troy’s campus in the drizzling rain while I shrieked things like, “Baby, this is the cafeteria where we ate our meals when I was in school here!” and “Miss, see that old building behind those magnolia trees? That’s the gym where I played college volleyball!” and “Honey, that pond over there is where I got dunked when I pledged Kappa Delta!” Parental bragging rights, you see.

And I guess all that happy reminiscing sapped my common sense just like leaving your car lights on drains your battery. How so, you ask? Well, wouldn’t you know that when we pulled into our driveway in Tennessee many hours later, my wallet wasn’t with us? I had accidentally left it in a gas station at our last pit stop.

Of course, I didn’t notice it was missing until the next morning when I picked up my purse before heading out the door and thought, Wow, this sure is light. Then I got that pit in my stomach—you know how it feels—when I began rummaging around in said purse and couldn’t find said wallet, realizing it could be at any one of the three or four potty/coffee/gas stops we made in Alabama and Tennessee on the way home. It took thirty minutes of retracing my steps and frustrating phone calls before finally discovering where I’d left it. Then, while talking to the manager at the store I’d left it in, it became apparent that whoever had graciously turned it in had also ungraciously rifled through it and taken the $400 cash that was in it first!

I know being “robbed” of four hundred dollars from a wallet I’d left in a bathroom stall in the middle of nowhere was totally my fault, but I still felt somewhat deflated when Missy and I got in the car to drive all the way back there to reclaim it. I thought, Ugh, I’ve got a million things to do, the last thing I need is to spend half the day chasing down my wallet and feeling guilty about losing four hundred hard-earned bucks. After driving in silence for a few minutes, Missy asked me if I was sad. I said, “Just a little bit, baby.” When she asked why, I explained that someone had taken our money without asking.

Which left both of us feeling a little subdued when we stopped to get sub sandwiches a few minutes later to eat on our wallet-retrieval-road-trip. But then, right as I was pulling money out of my pocket (since I was still sans wallet!) to pay for our lunch, a woman—whom I’d already noticed when we walked in because she was grinning from ear-to-ear—stepped in front of me and swiped her credit card to pay for our food! She laughed at my momentary bewilderment and went on to explain that she’d been really encouraged by my Bible studies and was tickled to meet Missy and me. She said buying our lunch was the least she could do to thank us for the spiritual blessing we’d brought into her life! While I was busy focusing on that stranger who stole without permission, God was divinely orchestrating another stranger to drop in our lives; one who would bless without permission.

I couldn’t stop smiling as we rode down the interstate happily snacking on free subs en route to pick up my mostly empty wallet (thankfully the wallet returner/cash thief had chosen to leave my driver’s license and credit cards). When Missy asked sincerely, “Mama, was that lady at Firehouse Subs an angel?” I couldn’t help laughing before replying, “Maybe, baby. Maybe.”

After my teensy First World problem was turned on its head by a generous sub-shop cherub, I also couldn’t help musing, “Instead of focusing on the inevitable rain in life, I want to focus on the inevitable sunshine.” Because in view of our perfect heavenly Father, who gives good gifts to His children, even our deepest disappointments will ultimately prove to be gatekeepers for future delight. No matter how hard it’s raining in our lives now, it’s really only a thimbleful of liquid in the vast ocean of God’s sovereignty. And may we never forget that in the divine template of eternity, this too shall pass.

• Would you describe your life as having more rainy days or sunshiny ones?
• When has God surprised you with a needed blessing—one you didn’t see coming?
• How have you seen God turn a rainy season into something beautiful?