Let me paint a picture for you.  It’s storming here in mid-Michigan.  Watching the radar on the news this morning, it seemed that there was a break in the thunderstorms and downpours for about an hour, in which I planned to get to work and walk the mile from the free parking lot to my building.  If you’re thinking that the best laid plans often get foiled, you’ll be heading in the right direction.

It wasn’t raining on my drive to work, nor when I parked in the free parking lot.  No, it waited until the exact moment when I got out of my car, slung my backpack on my shoulder, and started walking the mile to my building.  And not just raining.  Pouring.  Thunder and lightening, pouring.

By the time I reached my building, I was soaked to the core.  My rain jacket, apparently, is not waterproof.  My jeans,either.  Or my shoes, socks, backpack or laptop.  Perhaps, at this point, some of you are laughing at my predicament.  For those of you who are not, thank you.

I tell you all of this not for your sympathy at my still-wet jeans, shoes, and socks, but because the rain taught me a lesson this morning.  Sometimes in life, the steady drizzle goes on for what we feel is too long.  But more often, the storms we weather show up on the radar and we think we can get between them, but most of the time, we get drenched.  But the beauty of water is that it evaporates.  Even the most terrible storm has an end, and we dry out.  It may take a while, but eventually your jeans dry, your socks dry, your shoes dry, and for a time you’re comfortable again.  But then there is another storm.

We need the rain.  The storms make us stronger.  Yes, we get wet.  But hairdryers and heat guns and good old-fashioned air do the job, just like the people and circumstances around us help us weather life’s storms.  The storms will come.  But it’s only water.