After the Rain

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Have you ever noticed how much more vibrant everything is after the rain?  After a good rain, every blade of grass, every river stone, every bird and every ray of light has a special kind of glow.  The greens are somehow greener and the flowers are more vibrant, like the colors have an edge to them.  Even the trees stand slightly taller and stretch their arms and fingers a little farther out.  The rain, it seems, has a way of making things a little more ‘themselves’.

I think we’re a lot like the trees and the flowers in this way; and our struggles are like the rain.  They help us become a little more ‘ourselves’ by washing away everything that we’re not and reinvigorating everything that we are.

There’s no doubt that we, like the green world around us, have a certain beauty in the summer sun.  When we’re at our best, we’re deeply rooted, embracing the lessons of yesterday and drinking the warmth of today.  When the sun shines down upon the flower, she puts her best face forward and the whole world is rewarded with her beauty.

The winter, too, has its own kind of charm.  As that thick, white blanket drops overtop the world, the life below goes to sleep and dreams of what great things may come.  Beneath the safety of that cold cocoon, our tender soul gets to let go of the old things as we turn our attention to the coming spring, meditating on what new colors we may add to our artist’s palette.

Even still, nothing can ever quite compare to those first few moments after a long, hard rain.

During the rain, we aren’t growing but neither are we sleeping.  During the rain, we exercise our muscles as we withstand the storm and keep our eyes wide open for that silver lining.  While we are focused on standing our ground and holding it together, the rain replenishes us.  Though we may not see it while the storm is still raging, we are being gifted with the nutrients that will help us grow tall when the sun again graces us with its presence.

Perhaps the beauty of the storm is too often understated.

Eventually, the rain slows to a drizzle and finally comes to an end; and it’s in those first precious moments just after it stops when the real magic happens.  Just as the sun begins to peer through the remaining mist, we and the earth alike take on an ethereal glow, radiating a unique kind of magic.   This is the moment when the lessons begin to seep into the soil and surround our roots.  And as we relax our firm stance, we begin soaking them up until they make their way into our veins.  The waters that poured down upon us now begin to flow through us until they reach our hearts where they are transformed to become the source of our courage, of our wisdom, and our great compassion.   In this miraculous moment, we are instantly renewed, strengthened, and changed from the inside out.

This is why everything glows after the rain.  Because the struggle is never in vain; it always makes us stronger.

As it washes away all that dulls our shine from the outside, the rain itself seeps into us, reinvigorating and renewing our glow from the inside so that once the last drop hits the ground and the great exhale of relief washes over the land, for the most precious of moments, each and every one of us glows in a way that’s uniquely and enchantingly our own.

©2015 Cristen Rodgers

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