Don’t run from the rain, Dance in it

I do not like the question,

“When are you your best self?”

I do not like this question because it makes me pick times where I love myself more than others. Of course there are things in my life I am not proud of, but truly we are all trying our best are we not?

The circumstances in our lives are always changing, we are constantly evolving. This is why we cannot hate our past selves, we are no longer in that moment. Instead, we must forgive and accept we are different NOW.

Instead of having to decide when I am my best self, I am comfortable knowing when I best stand up for myself.

When are the times you show yourself the most love? Can you think of any? Now this seems to me, a more fulfilling challenging question.

I have been asking myself this lately,

“When do you show yourself the most love, when do you best take care of yourself?” “How can you maintain this through the challenging times?”

Well, I love my answer because I show myself the most love and support through the hard times. My answer makes me proud of who I have become, it allows me to feel comfortable looking at a future of unknowns.

Even if I was the one who made a mistake, I choose to be my best friend. I am able to forgive myself and learn from my actions. In hard times it feels like I thrive, when I am “supposed” to be feeling guilt and shame. Instead of hating myself, I feel forgiveness, a spark for change and growth.

Although of course, when my actions affect others I feel guilt, I feel shame, and I feel terrible! These are all IMPORTANT feelings to experience in life, we just cannot let them consume us. All feelings are normal, all feelings are valid. But eventually we must forgive ourselves, learn, grow, and move on.

I really love challenges, I see them like rain, when it pours what type of person are you? Do you dread the rain and wait for the sun to shine or dance in the rain? There is so much power in dancing in the rain. When you know you could have chose to wait for the world to get brighter, you chose the moment. You did not fantasize over the future, yet you fantasized the moment, the present.

But now imagine, the rain never stops. Days pass and you sit and wait for sunshine, but the rain never stops. You keep trying to dance in the rain but your hope only diminishes, it begins to fade. Days dig deeper and darker into your soul, you fall into a hole, you feel depressed. You say to yourself,

“Rain never lasts this long, sooner or later it will be gone.”

You try to snap yourself out of this depression and find hope, yet the rain keeps pouring and days keep passing. In fact it grows stronger and stronger. You are so sick of the rain so you decide to escape it, you decide to go somewhere sunny and bright. Somewhere where it never rains.

You get all your belongings, and close the door behind you. You do not care to question the meaning behind this abnormal rain fall, instead you have lost all hope in it, so you chase the sun. As you are leaving your home you wave at your next door neighbor goodbye. Your neighbor is an elderly lady sitting on her front patio watching the rainfall. Everyone else around you, besides your next door neighbor, has left as well. So you KNOW this is the right decision, and instead of wondering what may be the meaning behind all this rainfall, you choose to wonder why the elderly lady next door stayed.

Maybe she has no money to leave?

Maybe she is about to pass away and does not care?

Maybe she loves the rain?

These are all questions you ask yourself as you drive off into better, sunny days.

When you get there you feel free, this is everything you needed. Sunshine. The grass really is greener on the other side! You live in a tee shirt and shorts everyday, this is everything you dreamed of!

“God really did give me all that rain to guide me to this land of peace!”

“This is what he was trying to do!”

These are all things you say to yourself.

Life is so good, you feel bad for the little elderly lady who lived next door to you as you know she is still stuck in the rain. You really start to wonder why she did not leave.

And then one day, the sun on your lawn starts shining brighter and brighter. But only on your lawn. Your grass is dying, nothing can survive. You love your plants and watching them all die breaks your heart. You wonder why only your lawn is burning. You pray for rain, something you used to pray to never see again.

You pray and pray for rain.

And then a miracle happens! Rain comes! It has never rained here before, the city is loving it! But it does not rain on your lawn. Your lawn keeps dying and dying. There is no explanation for the reason this is happening. Your neighbors in your new neighborhood have lived their whole lives waiting for rain and it finally came. This joy would fill them for lifetimes. You see the smiles on their faces, but yours is frowning. You wonder, why you? Why do you keep getting dealt all these terrible cards?

You go into your house, feeling the same feeling of depression you once felt when the rain did not stop. You turn on your television to hopefully distract yourself from your feelings and what is going on. But when you turn on the television, the news comes on. What you see blows your mind, breaking news is that it has stopped raining in your old town! What is going on?

You keep going back and forth with the rain, it feels like the rain is playing games with you. Surely this has no deeper meaning to it, it is just rain.

But silly, I think you may have forgot God controls the rain. This is not just rain, this is God.

You see this as another sign from God and decide to move back to your old town. You feel all over the place, you keep escaping the challenge and it keeps following you.

You keep escaping the challenge and it keeps following you.

When you return to your old home, where the rain has finally stopped, your yard is a disaster. It is flooded, drowning in water. You feel flashbacks of old memories, and you begin to cry.

Yet you remember the elderly lady who lives next door. You remember she is still there, so you wipe your tears and decide to go visit her. When you approach her property you walk on fresh, green grass. Nothing is flooded, her plants are bigger and fuller than ever. Her yard is so alive. You turn and look at yours and wonder if you will ever have what she does one day. You knock on her door and she opens it with a huge smile on her face.

You exchange a hug and she invites you in for a coffee. She asks you about your journey and why you came to her house.

You begin talking, sharing how you left to escape the rain, and how you came back now that it is done. How your new home was not what you expected, the grass was not greener on the other side. But you most importantly ask the elderly lady why she decided to stay. And her words changed your life forever, she says:

“I did not stay because I could not leave, not because of my age, I chose to stay by choice. I watched the whole city flee and I choose to stay. And the reason I choose to stay is because I have ran just like you and everyone else my entire life. When I faced challenges in my life I would run instead of staying and wondering why God gave me them. God gave you the rain, God gave you endless rain, just as he gave you endless sun. God was challenging you, but you ran. And when you run from God’s challenges he does not stop trying to teach you the lesson he is trying to get through to you, he gives it to you over and over again in different forms. I learned this the hard way, the endless rain was the first time I was not going to let myself run. This time, I decided to wait and accept the challenge, to fight for the things I love. To fight for my yard, my flowers, and my home. Sure, it was not easy, there were days when I thought about running, but nothing was comparable to the joy than when the rain stopped. Nothing was more fulfilling.”

This story I share resembles a lesson present in my life right now. As I am being faced with a really hard challenge, I have chose to look to God. Even though I am scared of what is to come, I trust God, I must not run from God. Choosing to dance in the rain, choosing to see the good in the rain. Both these things are possible when you trust in God, don’t run just because you are scared, maintain hope, and trust what you love. I am able to maintain who I am and find more of myself knowing God is always working. Just because I run and feel a short term fix, does not mean God won’t come back into my life with the same lesson even stronger and more present than before. God will repeat lessons in your life until you open your eyes to them. You cannot escape God’s plan.

God will reward you for dancing in the rain.