Along with the Sunshine, Comes a Little Rain
“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have — life itself.” –Walter Anderson (And, I say “Amen” to that!)
I read that quote and simply copied and pasted it into a Word document for a blog I might create someday. Someday is here. Yesterday my blog spoke of the joys of loving and delighting in God and Him delighting in us. It was a blog intended to spark someone to become passionate about God. After the fact, I considered how there were probably those who may not have agreed with me since they have been “delighting” in God, but they haven’t seen the results of that delighting. In fact, they are struggling – not even certain God hears their cries for help.
When I was sharing about the blessing season that my children are in right now, I failed to tell you about the tough seasons they experienced getting to the blessing season. Someone said, “They were an overnight success!” That may seem true, but I assure you then, it was a long, long night. My children and their successes came with grueling hours of non-stop work and commitment with daily ups and downs, crazy situations that made tomorrow feel like it would never come. But all the while they kept their resilience, determination and their faith in God intact. They daily delighted in Him and His goodness and mercy.
Oh, I get it. For all of us. One day it feels like heaven is pouring blessing upon blessing on us. Seems like everything is going our way. Even the lights turn green before we get to them. And, another day, it’s cloudy and rainy with thunderstorms overtaking us. The thrills of the “shout-hallelujah” victories can be overtaken by the “woe is me” agony of defeat. All a part of God’s plan.
It’s inevitable that there will be ups and downs in our lives. Country Music singer, Lynn Anderson, made the song “Rose Garden” famous. The lyrics were: “I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden. Along with the sunshine, there’s got to be a little rain sometime.”
When we read the writings of the Apostle Paul, we might think that he and Lynn Anderson were singing the same song. Paul spoke about suffering, but he also talked a lot about the peace of God. He spoke about a calm that comes because of God’s love for us. The calm that comes even when the storm clouds gather. Paul even had the audacity to tell us to “rejoice in our sufferings”! He said in Romans 3:3-5 “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
St. Paul didn’t mean for us to go: “Hip hip hooray” when troubles come. Instead, he meant that suffering is a part of life. No matter how many times we complain that life is not fair, Paul wants us to know that suffering (a little rain) is the part of our lives that helps us grow to those hope-filled people of character and determination.
What Lynn Anderson’s song doesn’t tell us, and what Paul wanted so desperately for us to know, is that our God loves us so much that He promised never to leave us alone. Yes, the rain comes AND suffering comes, but with God, we’ll receive patient endurance. And patience leads to character. And character leads to hope. And hope will not disappoint us. That’s a mighty fine recipe for pulling us from the darkest of times, to the sun shiniest, blessing times EVER. That’s when we’ll be singing “I’m walking on sunshine (whoa oh)! And don’t it feel good!”