grace like rain

I knelt in the rain at 4:25am, asking the Lord for forgiveness for the ways I have acted this past month. Haven't been on my knees for a month.

There's something about rain. I've always like falling asleep to it hitting my ceiling (I live in the attic). I enjoy watching thunder and lighting storms off my back porch. And I really enjoy seeing the Jordan River transform into the Jordan Rapids after a light rain in Bloomington. The smell of rain is unmistakeable. You can tell when it's coming and when it's here and when it has just happened.

And kisses are always better in the rain.

At 4am, I finished watching Garden State and walked outside. I had wanted to do that since I woke up at midnight, but I had never seen Garden State so I thought I should finish that first. I walked outside into my front yard. No one was around, not even the raccoon I had seen the night before. It was completely dead, except for me, and except for Him. I walked to the middle of the road. The raindrops look liked little diamonds as they fell past the sycamore trees, reflecting the light from the street lamps. I just stood there, in my kakhi floods and white tank top, thankful that for the first time in a long time, my mind was pretty tranquil. I didn't have any running thoughts, no anxiety, just a recognition that I was on 13th street in the rain, andG-d was up beyond the black sky.

Sometimes I like to think that the rain is the Lord crying for His people, over how we have screwed up, desecrated the earth and ourselves, and how we rarely recognize that He watching, let alone exists. Tonight I felt like the rain was the tears I couldn't produce. It was the manifestation of how I felt but couldn't show. And it was the natural baptism I have been wanting for so long. It was just me coming clean, and Him making me clean.

Two songs were competing for attention. One: Hillary Duff "Come Clean." That was my confession. Let the rain fall down; I'm coming clean. The other was a praise: Grace Like Rain. It's Amazing Grace sung fairly monotone with an added chorus:

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Halleljuah, all my sin is washed away
washed away

And halfway through the second verse (Was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved...): downpour. Covered. Completely soaked. The Lord does lavish His love on us. Even if we've screwed up the same way a hundred times. Even if we've run from Him for a month, believing we could make the pain go away. Even if we can't cry ourselves, but He has to send the tears for us.

Even at 4am.