What raindrops taught me…

Just months after becoming a young widow, the sound of raindrops drew my attention and I looked outside to see the rain coming down. The pitter patter seemed to be louder than the soft shower should be producing and I wondered why the rain sounded so loud.

Glancing around the yard, I noticed a hard plastic kiddie pool that had been purchased in hope that warm summer days were coming. Once I spied the bright blue pool, it was apparent that I had found the source of the magnified sound. The pool, which had been empty earlier in the day, was now almost half full and I was amazed at how quickly the water had gathered.

After I watched the tiny drops hit the surface of the water, causing ripples to spread from each point of contact, I thought of the old hymn “Showers of Blessings.”

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could just accumulate blessings like that little kiddie pool?

You may look at your life and feel like you are anything but blessed right now. Maybe, like me, you’ve had times when you wonder if you have been overlooked by God while He’s been handing out the blessings.

As I looked around the yard, I noticed that the kiddie pool was the only thing that had collected water. The pots which were filled with plants didn’t have any extra water and there weren’t any puddles in the grass. It seemed almost as if that pool had been set out on purpose to catch the raindrops; after all, it had been positioned in a way that it could hold the raindrops it captured. If the pool had been placed upside-down on the yard, the water would have simply rolled off the top and been absorbed into the earth around it.

It was then that I realized our hearts are like that little kiddie pool.

The reason I had felt a lack of God’s blessings wasn’t because they weren’t being showered on me in the midst of a stormy day, it was simply that my heart was turned upside-down. Times of sorrow and grief had caused me to turn my heart so that it was unable to collect the blessings God had been giving me.

Just like the raindrops on that upside-down pool, God’s blessings were running down off my upside-down heart.

But they were still being absorbed.

With a clarity that was startling, I realized how my life was being saturated with those blessings just as much as rain water saturates soil. And just like rain, those blessings were helping beautiful things take root and bloom in my life.

With my heart turned the wrong way, I may not have been able to measure or feel those blessings, but they had fallen just the same and they had still done the work God had intended them to do.

With a prayer of gratitude, I flipped my heart over, making it open to God and the work He is constantly doing. And that was when I was able to see more of the “God moments” in my life and recognize that I am greatly blessed regardless of whatever stormy circumstances I may weather.

Do you know which direction is your heart turned?