May 25 – “Imagine my …”

Well, that was an interesting start to a Sunday.  Remember up front that we are meeting outside at Seaside now.  That’s important.  I checked the weather forecast on Saturday night to see if we would need to consider any alternatives for worship the next morning.  Imagine my chagrin when I saw all those little shower icons (Rain showers, not baby showers).  The rain was supposed to start in the night and continue at a 40 to 70% chance all day Sunday.  Uh oh.  Honestly, we had a general direction for that situation.  And by “general” I mean we had talked about moving under the retreat center building.  That’s about as far as we had gotten.  It was too late to do anything about it, though, so I said a prayer.  I asked God for a brief window for us to worship.  I knew he could do it.  Why?  Two reasons.  One, he is God.  Reason enough.  Two, I have seen him do it before, for one of our Easter sunrise services.  “Been there, done that” always fosters encouragement.  And I went to bed.

Sunday morning came and I woke at my usual time, fully expecting to see gray skies and a street full of standing water.  Imagine my surprise when I opened the front door to absolutely clear skies.  A bright, sunny day.  Still a bit incredulous, I opened my phone to check the forecast.  Not even a drop of rain scheduled all morning.  Amazing.  But why should it be amazing?  This is God we’re talking about, right?

We got to church in plenty of time to block off the parking lot entrance and get started on set up.  After a slow start people started arriving.  I guess they are reverting back to usual Seaside “Island Time.”  We ended up with a great crowd, and I suppose even a few more were watching online.  Speaking of online, it was great to see one lady who moved to California a while back.  I have seen that she has been regularly watching Seaside Online, so it was a nice surprise to see her face in person instead of inside that tiny little box that shows up on the computer screen.  She even shared some things with me that were really encouraging about how something I taught when she was here has stayed with her and affected her life in a really positive way.  I love surprises. 

We wound up our time together and hauled all the chairs and tables and musical and sound equipment back inside.  And a little before noon we were headed back home.  Imagine my sense of awe when … you guessed it … it started raining.  Really hard.  And it continued on and off the rest of the day and into the early hours of this morning.  I would say, as far as miracles go … that counts.

I Kings 18:41 says, “Then Elijah said to Ahab, ‘Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!’”

Father, thank you so much for that window of beauty so we could worship yesterday.  Amen.