Rain and Waiting

Everything these days seems to be about waiting.  I am rather impatiently waiting for my walker to be a thing of the past.  I am waiting to see what an MRI later this week shows about another nodule in THE leg as well as results of the routine scans.  I am waiting to find out what direction the Houston oncologists recommend going this Friday:  both what, if any, scans to do routinely and any treatment.  My local oncologist recommends stopping the routine scans (they would not have picked up this last metastasis in the femur and chemotherapy has failed) and suggests looking at some studies on immunotherapy and watching for any symptoms before scanning (I tend to like that idea).  I am not the most patient person in the world and, like most of us, I like the path to be clear, and obviously haven't yet fully learned the lesson that we cannot know what tomorrow brings.

I was thinking about my impatience in waiting yesterday.  My thoughts were rather gloomy which I felt went along rather well with the weather as it was raining, cloudy, dark and cold.  As I contemplated this more in the afternoon, I read a chapter in John Piper's book II of A Godward Life.  The title of the chapter, I thought, was quite appropriate for the day; The Great Work of God: Rain!  I couldn't help but feel that my perspective on the rainy day would have to change however when I read that title and the verses he quoted from Job 5:8-10;

              "But as for me, I would seek God,

              And I would place my cause before God; 

              Who does great and unsearchable things,

              Wonders without number.

              He gives rain on the earth,

              And sends water on the fields."

Piper was remarking on Job's thought that the rain was a "great and unsearchable thing" from God.  His  thoughts on the process of the rain falling filled me with a sense of  awe at the majesty of God and reminded me to think of His great power and love for His people when I am waiting.   Though lack of rain cannot account for my failed attempts at both vegetable gardens and fruit trees, it is vital both to my gardens, life itself and the farmer's produce.  As far as I'm concerned the rain falls from the sky and rarely do I stop to think of how that happens.  I don't think of that water being carried, sometimes hundreds of miles, from a lake, ocean or sea.  For one inch of rain to fall on a square mile of land it would need to be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, or 206,300,160 gallons or 1,650,501,280 pounds!  It is beyond my comprehension to picture that amount being evaporated, brought up to the skies, gathering around dust particles that are between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide to condense and fall down to the earth.  And if salt is in the water, it needs to be taken out before falling lest it kill the crops.  Not only that, but the water has to come down in little drops that are big enough to fall about a mile without evaporating and small enough not to crush the plants!  That is a very simplistic explanation for something very complex that is far beyond my feeble mind to comprehend and can only be orchestrated by a majestic God.

I am left in wonder that God would orchestrate this rain so perfectly, not only to care for the plants He created, but to care for us, His people.  I concluded several things as I thought on the rain.   First it left me determined to never again think of the rain so negatively.  It also made me determined to take time to stop and see the beauty of God's working in the creation around me every day.  It also humbled me as I  realized that just as God caused the raindrops to fall at the precise time He pleased, so He knows the perfect time for everything going on in my life, even the cancer.  I need not be impatient because that impatience is looking at things from my perspective and not His.  I am left praying with David in Psalm 138, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me;  You will stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me,  The LORD will perfect that which concerns me;  Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.