Grateful For Rain

It's been raining in Phoenix.  Yes, it does rain here sometimes.  It's actually rained for several days straight.  I know other parts of the country get this kind of socked in, no sun for days kind of rain.  But we don't get it too often.  So at church on Sunday, during a prayer, it was said that we are "grateful for the rain".  I started thinking about that.  Why are we grateful for rain?  Are we grateful for the wet, maybe dangerous roads?  No.  How about the fact that our young children have to stay inside and can't go outside to play.  Umm, I think not.  Maybe for the 'wet dog smell' inside our homes, or the mud tracked in on the floors.  Yuck.  Then there are the leaky roofs, the mass weed growth and the allergies and sickness.  Are we thankful for that.  NO!  It was pretty easy to figure out though.  We know the rain is needed for several reasons.  It provides much needed moisture to the plants and vegetation.  Not the weeds, but the good stuff.  The beautiful landscapes, trees, flowers.  And most definitely the crops that supply our food.  So less rain means less food, means higher prices.  So we certainly like the rain for that.  It fills our lakes and reservoirs.  Through natural processes, it supplies the needed drinking water that sustains our own lives.  Pretty simple to understand.  We are grateful for the rain because we understand the necessity of it and the end result.  We see the big picture.  We know that the momentary inconveniences are just that, momentary.  We know that the positive out weighs the negative.  We know that weeds can be pulled and the roads will dry out.  We know that the sun is still shining behind those dark clouds and we will enjoy the warmth of the sun again.  Such an easy concept to understand. 

I quite often wish I could see the end result of my storms, my trials.  To know what the good outcome will be and to see just how it really does out weigh the bad.  To see the necessity of it all.  Maybe it's enough to know that the storms of life are temporary, that the weeds can be pulled, the flowers will grow and the Son is still shining on my behalf.