Let It Rain, Let It Pour

I'll tell ya, inspiration for blog posts can hit me anywhere, anytime, especially when I'm taking photos! This one came to me when I was capturing pictures of a beautiful sight over the Atlantic Ocean at Emerald Isle earlier this week. I went down for a vacation with my family Tuesday. Thursday, we had been on the beach for roughly an hour when one of my aunts yelled down to the shore from the house we were renting that we needed to come inside. There was a tornado warning (one had been spotted- yikes!) for Carteret County and the storm was moving quickly towards us. Sure enough, when we turned to see what she was yelling about, the sky behind our house, to the north, was an ominous navy.

Shout out to my mom for risking her life during a tornado warning to snapchat the occasion. She's the real MVP.

And yet, the sky over the ocean was a beautiful blue. It looked like a perfect day.

We scrambled together our things and wogged up to the house. (That's half-walk, half-jog for those of you who like to run- basically what I do every time I exercise.) We dropped our things on the floor of the third story kitchen (isn't it strange how the kitchen is on the third floor? It makes for a lovely view, though!) and I stepped out on the balcony at the back of the house. When I saw the storm, my stomach dropped and in flooded the anxiety. Right over the house was an obvious center of rotation in the clouds. I paced back and forth and a few of my aunts took the smaller children to the first floor. Suddenly, the sky opened up and it started pouring. I believe the rain pushed away the spinning clouds, and thankfully so, because you could see the beginnings of a funnel cloud forming. It rained for hours, effectively ruining our day at the beach. Since I had come down late in the week, I only had a few days to spend tanning and swimming in the ocean (my favorite! Sharks can't keep me out of the water!) so I was rather disappointed.

The downpour finally let up before dinnertime and I stepped out on the deck to grab a drink. I looked up and saw the most beautiful sight.

I had never been so close to a rainbow before! The pictures do not do it justice and what you can almost see in the first photo is that the end of it touched the ocean right in front of our house. Jokes ensued about who was swimming out to get the pot of gold. It was magnificent and absolutely made the rainy, yucky day worth it.

'So what's your point, Taylor?' My point is that rain is inevitable. It is going to rain. It will rain. We were never promised smooth sailing. John 16:33 says that "In this world you will have trouble." God warned us, He told us that hard times would ensue. Nobody escapes it. But out of all of it will come something beautiful!

The rest of the verse says, "Take heart! I have overcome the world." Don't dwell on your struggles, don't pity yourself because you're soaking wet because you didn't make it inside before it started pouring. Understand that this is how it is, that some things aren't meant to be understood, that you are not the only one facing pain and sorrow. Those problems are worldly. They are grounded in our earthly home, in people, in material items. That is not how it is to be forever, though. There is more to it. God is in control and in Him those world things mean nothing. Rain is just rain. If you believe you will persevere and you will make it though. Better even, you will grow. You will thrive. You will get your rainbow.

Just as rain causes the plants and greenery to grow, so struggles make you grow as a person. Hardships make you change your view and your strategy. God will make you abound in everything you do, but you must first believe and put all your faith in him- even through the rain.