Today is the first day of March.  It is a gloomy, rainy day… one of many in the last few weeks. There are puddles the size of small lakes taking over the school garden outside my classroom window.  It’s cold and drippy outside.  Students have to spend recess indoors. Ugh!  

Once upon a time, about four years ago, I posted “Welcome Rainy Days.”  [See https://uvraylandrover.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/welcome-rainy-days/  ] In it I took the sometimes unpopular view that rain is good, necessary, a gift from God.  I’m not feeling it today.

Okay, okay, I know there are places in the world that are begging for just a little bit of the rain we’ve had in the last few weeks.  I know that we need water for important things … like life.  I know that God provides all that we need through his creation.  Rain is an act of divine providence, of grace given to all of us, after all.   I know, I know!  In my head I know it’s all true.  In my heart, I’m not feeling it.

So, as I stood by the window lamenting the soggy view, I noticed something.  At the edge of the garden, poking up through the mud, being pelted by the relentless rain were tulip leaves!  Two inch tall tulip leaves!  Amazing!  What a find on this dreary day!  And then, just a few inches away, I saw… crocuses!  In bloom!  It was a glimmer of hope, indeed, that Spring was coming.  Today’s gift on a rainy day…

I should probably stop here and resist the temptation to turn this into some cheesy metaphor about life… You know … in our troubled times, when things are gloomy and without hope, God provides crocuses to brighten our day.  Yep, I should just end it here.  However, it’s true.  He does.  I know.  In gloomy times, I’ve experienced that gift from others.  It is God’s gift of love in its various forms that brightens our hearts, on dreary, rainy days.  Today’s gift, indeed!