After the Rain

Do you ever have days, or even weeks, when it just feels like things aren't going your way? Not necessarily in a giant earth-shattering, heart-breaking sort of way... just in a "I can't get it together" sort of way?

Not quite a thunderstorm, but definitely an annoying rain shower.

Because let me tell you -- I have.

These past couple of weeks have been like this for me. I just feel like each time I try to get up and get my life together, something messes up. It's nothing huge -- just little nuisances that get under my skin and make me want to run and scream into the nearest pillow.

In the span of little over a week, I managed to lose my dog and spend the whole night forcing my family and friends to agonize with me (yes, she was found the next morning, thankfully), ruin an entire crock-pot meal that was meant for 2 full days (and when you don't have a lot of money, it's a big deal), and grab the wrong key as I made my husband go running with me -- locking us out of the house and forcing us to break a back window and crawl through it.

Let me just tell you that by the time that week was over I was just about ready to pull my hair out. It seemed like if I wasn't cleaning up or trying to recover from one thing, something else happened.

Again, nothing that flipped my world on its head, but enough to make me want to cry and lash out at my husband when I didn't feel like he was doing things exactly right. Solely to cover for the fact that I felt like it was me that wasn't doing things right. I wasn't getting things done the way I wanted to. The way I expected myself to. And it was making me infuriated.

But let me just explain that when it comes to "luck", I don't have it. I'm the girl who slashed her tire driving down to set up with her family the day before her wedding. I'm the girl who left her car RUNNING while the keys were still in it because I was running inside to get away from a thunder storm. I'm the kid who broke 7 different bones throughout my childhood, solely because I'm a giant klutz. There have been times where I just wanted to kick myself for being ridiculous.

HOWEVER... I am a princess. A daughter of a KING. And when I'm having days (or months or weeks, or even yearsssss) I can know that, and take comfort in that. Often times when I feel like I'm just a whimpering kitten out in the rain desperately seeking shelter, I like to think back to John 16:33 where Jesus himself tells us "In this world you will have trouble. BUT TAKE HEART! I have overcome the world."

We're going to have trouble. We're going to have strife. We are going to have life-shattering events happen to us. This world is full of sin, full of pain, full of suffering. Being a Christian doesn't change that fact. It doesn't make it any different. But it does give us a reason to endure the rain. Endure the storms. Because we know that our Creator endured the greatest storm of all... He died for US. And He came back. He truly did overcome this world.

So if you're going through a small rainstorm as I have and it's making you want to bite your fingernails to nonexistence, or you're in a full-fledged monsoon and you're wondering if there's a light -- there is. His name is Jesus.

After the rain, comes the rainbow.