Bring of the Rain!

Back in college with one of my roommates being from rural southern Utah, and another one dating a rodeo cowboy, we listened to a LOT of country music. It is a practice that I have since tried to avoid, but occasionally a song creeps back into my head from that era of my life.

That is what happened to me today. The chorus of that song goes like this: "Cause tomorrow's another day, and I'm thirsty anyway, so bring on the rain." The whole premise of this country song is that life is really hard (we would call that messy here) and it does feel like the rain is beating down on you hard... but maybe you should just say "bring it on, I need it."

Well, it isn't often that a country song from 14 years ago pops into my head so let me give you the back story...because that is the heart of this miracle.

My house sits on almost a third of an acre. Now I really wanted a decent sized back yard when it was time to go house hunting, so I am not complaining about that. What does make the large yard a bit of a challenge is that my sprinkling system is busted. (I know 1st world problems.) This summer most of my time has been spent trying to resurrect my lawn from last summer's construction damage, and try my hardest to water it on a semi consistent basis in order to keep it at least some sort of shade of green.

So when I noticed that with my consistent watering (and a super high water bill to prove it) the lawn still not getting better, I knew I needed to stage an intervention. And just so you understand why I thought my yard was in such a crisis, I would like to pause this regularly scheduled blog post to show you the yard that I grew up with. My parents yard:

You see, this not being the first time I have almost killed my lawn, I knew my problem was grubs...bug larvae that attack the roots of the lawn leaving it brown despite all the water in the world you throw on it. So I found a tried an true product that I knew would get the job done (which in and of itself was a miracle) and with my little girl asleep insanely early, (another miracle) and my son watching a movie... I knew I had a small window of opportunity to get this stuff put down on the lawn. Unfortunately if I laid it all down in one evening, I would need to get it watered into the lawn that evening or else dogs (I have one) and kids (I have two) would not be able to go on the grass until water did.

I constantly was refreshing my weather app in case the chance of rain increased to something above a 30% chance it currently showed but it wasn't budging. Without precipitation I would have to water all that grass before it got dark. I laid all the grub stuff down, and it started sprinkling a little bit, which made me happy -  but then it stopped. I started the sprinkler on one area of the lawn and figured that if I had both the front and back sprinkler going at the same time, it would take about 2 hours to get everything watered in. The task before more seemed daunting. You see when you are the sole adult in charge of home maintenance, life maintenance, and kid maintenance, at least for me, the idea of one more thing that I am solely responsible for, becomes one more weight on my shoulders that can't be shifted to a partner who would help ease the burden.

Feeling the weight of having to take care of everyone and everything in my small corner of the world, and seeing the Herculean task in front of me of watering a lawn late at night, I said a simple prayer to God asking if he would please let it rain enough to water the grub stuff into my lawn. Then I ended my prayer saying, but if not I will continue to use the sprinkler like I have.

I let the sprinkler run, and went inside to begin playing with my son. I set the timer to tell me when to move the sprinkler again. I also watched the weather on my mobile news app in the hopes that they would say we would get a deluge. (It wasn't looking promising). The timer beeped. I went out, felt some rain drops, (but not enough to do the job) and moved the sprinkler. I knew this cycle pretty well...turn on the sprinkler, go inside, set the timer, the timer beeps, go outside move the sprinkler....This was how I have been keeping my lawn watered all summer without a functioning sprinkling system. I continued playing with my son. The timer beeped again. This time when I went outside to move the sprinkler, it was drizzling. A steady drizzle. And it was enough. I turned off the sprinkler and thanked God. A short while later, as if God was smiling down on me with rain drop kisses, the sky opened and it became a downpour.

Now this is the point in the story where I gush about the goodness of God. Would it have rained even if I hadn't have said that prayer - yes. Do I still believe that rain was my little miracle? Yes. Because for me a miracle occurs anytime when I feel heaven reach down to me and bless me in a way that I ask or that I need. Most of the time it is not recognized, but it is always welcome.

A word of caution for the skeptic in all of us. The scriptures caution us to not call good evil and evil good. Yet sometimes we do that with God. We curse God when things are horrible, and pat ourselves on the back when He blesses us. What I have come to know in the last few months is this: The more I have tasted of God's goodness amidst my trials and hardships, the more I am willing to say "Bring on the Rain!"

Love,

   Madeline