Weather-Thanks

 The weather here in Alaska has been all over the place this year! After a long and snowy winter, Spring arrived with unseasonable heat and dryness. While everyone enjoyed the warm, sunny days after months of chilly-dark, it was universally agreed that we desperately needed rain as fires began to ravage the state, plants and trees were parched, and the ground ached for moisture. 

Then, in mid-July, the long-awaited rains came. Everyone was so thankful! Expect that it kept on raining...and raining...and raining... in record-setting amounts. Yes, the fires were soon contained and the greenery was happier and the earth was quenched of its thirst, but the continuous amounts of water drops pouring from the heavens soon created new problems: flooding. plants dying from too much rain. people longing to see even one sunny day. 

In just a few short weeks, the pendulum had swung and suddenly, everyone was wanting the opposite of what they'd been asking and praying for not long before. August came and the rains still kept on coming. And when there was a dry day, it felt almost obligatory to get outside and enjoy it because the forecast usually called for more rain to follow shortly afterward. 

Just as quickly can a heart turn against the plans of God - the weather of life. At one moment you can be crying out from desert-heat and mouth parched right dry and the next, that same tongue can be begging for the rains to stop. 

The human soul is never content. Always wanting more. Always feeling deficient. 

Reports of snow in the higher elevations and deeper Interior of Alaska soon got everybody talking about the possibility of an earlier winter. Would the rains soon turn to white flakes gently falling to the ground? Heads shook as the unspoken sentiment always seems around here that the summers are never quite long enough. And even and earlier, warmer Spring couldn't satisfy these northerners. There's a reason many Alaskans go south in the winter, either for a short vacation or until the Spring comes back again. 

Oddly, I seem to be one of those who isn't cursing winter's approach. I'm actually welcoming it because winter brings with it cozy days and warm fires and colored lights and snowy peace that the hectic pace of summer doesn't give you. 

Yet, the lesson isn't lost on me that nobody is ever fully happy with the weather. Whatever heat wave or rain clouds seem to have taken up residence, people seem to treat it like an unwelcome guest. It's either "too hot" or "too drippy" or "too cold," depending on how you look at it. 

Never enough. 

It's the age-old issue that's been our problem since the Garden - to seek more than what has been given and to allow the not-given to spoil the now and to complain about goodness-lack when the Giver Himself has allowed us access to all He has and more. 

It's just like us to focus on the not-have's when abundance is sitting right in front of us. 

I have to ask myself the obvious: can you find peace and be grateful even when life isn't to your expectations or liking? Can you enjoy God and the life you have even in the face of imperfection? 

Perhaps it's this craving for more that drives so many of us to seek love, acceptance, hope in all the wrong places. We can never just appreciate what's already in our hands because we're too concentrated on chasing what seems like it will more closely meet our needs but all it leaves us with is greater emptiness. More longing. 

But what if God designed that same longing to be re-directed? What if it's just evidence that we were built for a depth of receiving that only He can offer? Maybe we're actually wasting our greatest desires on the worst places when what we really need is to experience graces. More living water. 

Yes... just like the woman at the well and Hagar and her son and all people throughout history that came crawling to the Savior for help... what we're actually after is what can satisfy forever. 

A little rhyme I learned in childhood comes to mind as I contemplate this and there's suddenly more truth to it than I realized all those years ago. The last lines of which read, 

"We'll weather the weather, whatever the weather, 

Whether we like it or not." 

Will we choose to bear whatever storms or heat-heavy come upon us and still give thanks? Decide to see the good within and find a reason to be grateful? Or will we be as those who pick what they will receive from God's hand and call it evil when it doesn't match up to their wishes? 

I don't know about you but I want to keep finding ways to bless God for wherever I am and whatever state I'm in. He knows how much sun and rain and chill a life needs. It may not always agree with what I've deemed is best, but who am I to argue with the Almighty's will? 

It's as true now as it always was: those who drown and those who break are the ones who've determined to resist. The inflexible. The rigid. Lean-in to where the winds blow and the drops fall or the sun beats, and you'll find grace meets you there. You'll find the always-enough when you're willing to call even the hard things good because your God is good. You learn to embrace whatever weather comes your way in life because you trust it is from the hand of Him. 

So maybe drops will soon turn to flakes and the warmth of summer will be but another distant memory. In my soul, it's okay. For even in the not-ideal, the three things that Paul once said would abide - faith, hope, and love - remain still.