One of the things I missed the most when I lived in Colorado was grand thunderstorms. Lighting flashing and thunder crashing, echoing through the hills and valleys as a storm passes through always brings a warm feeling to my heart. One of my earliest memories of 1st grade was sitting at my desk in the old school building with the huge windows down one wall. The sky was nearly as dark as night and great flashes of lightning arced through the clouds. Soon, fat raindrops started hitting the windows…first here, then there…till the glass was covered with a torrent of rain that blurred the view of the neighborhood beyond. 

I remember I had a piece of construction paper on my desk and was drawing with colored chalk. I loved drawing with chalk. I loved the smell, the feel of the dust on my fingers, the way you could blend the colors. I felt like a real artist because all I had ever used up till then was a small box of crayons and a No. 2 pencil. When I experience a thunderstorm, I’m transported back to the safety of 1st grade when my biggest concern was which color to use next.

Yesterday was another really hot and humid day. While I thought for sure we were not going to have to go to town, we ended up having to make the trip anyway. We forgot to pick up Mr. FixIt’s medicine on Tuesday and we needed to pay our personal property taxes. There’s something I don’t get. We have to pay taxes every year for things we already bought and paid taxes on. It aggravates me every time I pay them. We didn’t have that in Colorado. Anyway, once the sun started to drop below the far hill, I went out and mowed the back fenced-in yard around the pool and Mr. FixIt ran the weed eater. When we were done, we jumped in the pool to cool off. What a treat for our labors. I ran Mr. FixIt through his water exercises and we got out about a half hour before the storm hit. 

I find it fascinating that I can pick up my phone an look at live Doppler radar and watch a storm approaching. My grandma could sit on the front porch, listen to the wind and watch the leaves on the trees and know a storm was imminent. When she got older, she could tell by the joints in her hands when the rain was coming. I’m beginning to be able to do that, too. All day yesterday, I kept getting sharp pains in the joints in my hands and the storm came by 10:00pm. I always thought it was interesting when I saw myself turning into my mother. Now I’m seeing myself turn into my grandma. It’s pretty cool, actually.

The rain came in sheets and the thunder rolled all around me as I was writing this. It was such a welcome break from the pain I’ve been feeling in my heart with all the sadness in the world lately. I have this constant feeling that the tears are just above my heart…that I’m constantly choking them back. It’s grief…just as surely as any grief I’ve felt before. I’m grieving for so many things lost. And right in the middle of it, I can prop myself up against the pillow at the headboard of my bed, close my eyes, and let the storm that rages on the outside soothe my heart on the inside. Maybe thunder is the language of angels.

❤️

“Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.”

John 12:28-29