Only Us

Ej had 5 days off last week. Three were his normal days off, one was for the July 4th holiday, and one he took off as a vacation day. We spent the five days working around our place, getting several tasks and projects done. EJ got a couple things fixed on the truck and worked in his garden and garage. He also installed additional shelves in my craft closet. I reorganized my craft closet and did my normal tasks of laundry, cleaning, cooking, working in my herb garden, drying herbs, and caring for our animals. I also organized some of the books in our library, pulling mine that I didn’t like or that we have duplicates of. We will donate them to the public library for their used book sales. We didn’t do anything “special” for Independence Day, but we really enjoy quietly puttering around our home and garden. Peace and quiet, in itself, is “special” to us.

This week we are back to our regular routine of EJ working his normal four 10-hour days at his company and then we both working on tasks on Wednesdays and Thursdays, which are his “weekend.”

In theory, our area has had a decent amount of rain this summer. In reality, we, personally, have not had much. We’ve watched on radar as rain moves over large swathes of Michigan. However, most of it goes to the north or south of us or forms beyond us as it moves east. It’s a bit frustrating to watch the rain miss us day after day. I do my best to keep our gardens watered, but the sprinkler is not as effective as an all-day soaking rain. In places where the sprinkler doesn’t reach, our sandy soil is dusty dry and the grass is yellowing.

Last week EJ prayed that God would “please send us rain.” Then God did. Specifically, He sent “us” rain. I was surprised when it started to rain because the sky had been quite sunny that day and the rain seemed sudden. I checked the radar to estimate how long the rain would last–would we get a short period of rain or would it be long-lasting? Would the rain be heavy or light? I was surprised at what I saw because the radar showed just a tiny blob of rain directly over us. I laughed and showed EJ. He said that when he prayed that God would “send us rain,” it never occurred to him that God would send only us rain. In case you doubt me, here’s a small portion of the screenshot of the radar that I captured. As you can see, our house is marked at almost the center of the rain cloud. Except for that blob of rain, the skies were clear for miles and miles. It lasted only a relatively short time but was far better than a sprinkler.

Sometimes God’s gifts are very obvious.