Rainy Day Quiet

Life has been absolutely non-stop the past few months. There has hardly been a moment to stop and really think or refocus or organize or plan or dream or write. 

But on this glorious grey and rainy day, I am choosing quiet.

My soul needs it.

My heart needs it.

My mind needs it.

My body needs it.

Rainy day music is playing from the songza app on my iphone, the windows are wide open so the sound of falling rain can fill my ears and heart, a cozy blanket is keeping me warm, coffee is brewing, a candle is twinkling, and I am actually writing for the first time in months (while crunching down a bowl of Special K).

Aside from lack of sleep, this weekend has been almost perfect. 

State Fair on Friday night with a beautiful friend...

I finally ate gelato for the first time...and all I have to 

say is that it most certainly won't be the last.

We rode the sky glider...so relaxingly fun. And we ate chocolate 

dipped cheesecake on a stick...so delightfully delicious.

Friends <3

Fun on the rides

Saturday morning we got up and headed to inner city Milwaukee to do ministry outreach with a new church plant. For a small town girl who has never done anything like that, it was a hugely eye opening experience. My heart grew a few sizes and I can't wait to go back.

Saturday night we headed back into Milwaukee for live music at a coffee shop with more friends. We talked and laughed and danced and sipped coffee and split a huge peanut butter chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.

And now here I sit in a beautiful, quiet, empty house. House/fish sitting for friends is actually just a wonderful and needed vacation. My sister is staying with me and she'll be back soon with a movie and has promised to make quesadillas. I'll take a soak in the jacuzzi later in the day. My Beth Moore Bible study that has sat untouched for way too long will be dug into. An early bedtime has already been set.

It's been a rough past few weeks and I am thankful for this much needed weekend of fun and ministry and quiet and rest. God is the Giver of all good gifts and this weekend is full of them. The rough weeks have been full of them too. He makes all thing work together for good and He is making that abundantly bright and clear lately.

This poem is included in today's Streams in the Desert reading. I find it so appropriate for this day.

Last night I heard a robin singing in the rain,

And the raindrop's patter made a sweet refrain,

Making all the sweeter the music of the strain.

So, I thought, when trouble comes, as trouble will,

Why should I stop singing? Just beyond the hill

It may be that sunshine floods the green world still.

He who faces the trouble with a heart of cheer

Makes the burden lighter. If there falls a tear,

Sweeter is the cadence in the song we hear.

I have learned your lesson, bird with spotted wing,

Listening to your music with it's tune of spring--

When the storm cloud darkens, it's the TIME to sing.

Eben Eugene Rexford