When You Need to Remember the Sound of Rain

This week we had our first summer monsoon storm here in the desert where I live, a welcome relief from the blistering days of June with temps breaking records of over 115 degrees. As I listened to the sound of rain falling in the night, I was reminded of a story from my book, Under a Desert Sky:

The sound of thunder wakes me. The digital numbers in the dark room glow 3:58. I turn to go back to sleep, but with the thunder, I hear another sound.

Could that be rain?

The thought draws me out of my pillowed comfort to investigate. The months have been dry. A slight scattering of rain fell a few weeks ago, but the ground has received no moisture since then. Dry as dust. So much dust. The weather has seduced us with storm clouds, but we have had only dry thunderstorms. Long tails have streamed from high clouds with the promise of rain, but the moisture evaporated before it hit the ground due to the low humidity and high temperatures.

We are in the waiting, when it can be difficult to hold on to promises. To hold on to hope. Every day clouds mushroom the skies, but we are left standing in the dust.

To the non-desert dweller, the excitement found in the arrival of rain may seem a strange phenomenon. We have abandoned puzzled dinner guests at the table in order to stand in the front yard, our faces lifted skyward for the falling.

Our youngest was seven months old before he experienced his first rain storm. It was August and we had ridden the chairlift at Snowbowl up the western slope of Humphrey's Peak, the tallest peak in Arizona (12,633 feet). We hiked part of the summit trail, the kids searching for the distinct orange-red bark of the ponderosa pine so they could sniff the vanilla scent found in the trunk. The trees thinned as we climbed in elevation, but before we made the alpine tundra, we glanced at the sky—dreary and threatening. A storm was brewing.

Kevin took the boys and I had the girls with me as we loaded on the chairlift for the twenty-five-minute descent. The wind picked up as we soared above the forest, the pines exhaling in the moist pregnant air. Halfway down, the thunderstorm hit, wild and furious, pelting us from all sides. We scrambled to put on raincoats on our narrow, swinging perches.

And then . . . the power shut down.

We hung suspended in space on the chairlift with no place to hide. The rain came at us sideways, drenching us in seconds.

And then...the lightning.

Around us, lightning zigzagged while we sat with front-row seats to nature’s display of raw power. I watched petrified, fully aware we were now the highest landmark in an electrically charged landscape.

Lightning blazed, thunder exploded, the wind ranted, and, according to Kevin, our young son laughed. Zach peered out from the protection of his dad’s raincoat and stretched his fingers to touch the falling water. Soon that wasn’t enough. He opened his mouth to catch the rain. He wasn’t content to merely touch the water; he wanted to totally experience it.

After that incident (yes, we did get down safely and the lodge gave us free hot cocoa), Zach could not get enough of rain. Whenever he saw a puddle, he did not simply splash his feet with toddler exuberance. Instead, he would lie down, face flat to the concrete, connecting as much skin as possible to the water, as if his pores needed to remember the feel of rain. The smell. The essence.

These memories draw me now from my bed. The promise of rain.

I open the front door to the blackness. A welcome sound blankets me. Gentle. Cleansing. Rain.

Still in my jammies, I sit outside on the bench under the eaves and watch the water fall. The lightning parade. Drops hiss as they bounce off the steaming asphalt. The rain hits the sidewalk and splashes my bare feet. For forty minutes I sit and soak up the sound as the rain falls. The soothing cadence drips into the dry cracks of my soul, weaving its way into the hard places.

The shower descends on plant carcasses. Thirsty ground. Endless concrete heat.

And one tired heart.*

Today, on your journey of faith, 

if you are in a dry season,

I pray,

your heart remembers the sound of rain.

Pause. Reflect. Keep listening.

 *from Under a Desert Sky: Redefining Hope, Beauty, and Faith in the Hardest Places by Lynne Hartke, Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2017. 

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