My youngest grandkids got their first umbrellas this week.
They were cause for much excitement. All the old rules and wives’ tales went out the window as they used their umbrellas inside, outside and wherever they could think of. They used them in the car, while they watched TV and even while they were in bed. Umbrellas are exciting things when you’re little.
Watching them enjoy their umbrellas made me think about them in long-forgotten ways. On a good day, umbrellas can become canes, Peter Pan swords or even baseball bats. I had forgotten what magical things they really are.
Seeing them enjoy their new umbrellas made me think about rain in a new way too. We get more than our fair share of rain here in the PNW. It’s easy to let all the gray days get me down. I needed to look at rain with the eyes of a toddler with a new umbrella.
Deuteronomy 32:2 says, “Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.”
Isn’t that lovely?
Hosea 6:3 – “Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
Job 29:23 – “They waited for me as for showers and drank in my words as the spring rain.”
Proverbs 16:15 – “When a king’s face brightens, it means life; his favor is like a rain cloud in spring.”
I can’t decide which of these scriptures is my favorite. The word pictures they paint fill me with joy and make me want to put on my rubber boots, grab an umbrella and splash through a few puddles.
There’s nothing like seeing the world through the eyes of a child or visiting the pages of the Bible to look at things in a new way.
Look up what the Bible says about rain and the next time those drops fall from the sky you just might view them differently. And, by all means, buy yourself the brightest umbrella you can find!
