Sunday, September 09, 2007

No Rain No Gain

The weather's been great in NC this summer apart from being crazy hot. It's been sunny pretty much every day. Great forecast, right? The only trick is that now we're experiencing extreme drought, which isn't a lot of fun. What gets my goat more though is that I know this upcoming fall season is going to be dreary and bland - no vibrant colors. And that's my favorite time of year!!

So, I was sitting in church last night and a correlation between our predicament and life struck me. In my life I like sunny days with no clouds to be seen. I am perfectly content with no summer storms raining down on my parade. I can handle cotton candy every day. Perfect home (and house), great job, all relationships moving along smoothly. Life's good. It's fine with me if I don't have any crises, whether they last a day or a year or more.

What's the correlation? Well, the people a generation or two ahead of me that I really admire, the one's I could sit and listen to for hours - they've all had at least their share of storms. And I've come to realize, those storms are much of what makes them who they are and why I know admire them.

Now, while I wouldn't mind some sunnier weather with temps in the mid 70's with a calm breeze, those storms might just come to work in my favor down the road, even if that's further down then I can see at the moment.

Pardon the following long quote, but I think it fits nicely with this idea - I had it at about the same time as the above. It's an exchange between Samwise and Frodo in the Return of the King when things are not going well:

Frodo: "I can't do this, Sam."
Sam: "I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. 'Cause sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How can the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing. A shadow even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were to small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folks in those stories had lots of chances in turning back only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding onto to something."
Frodo: "What are we holding onto, Sam?"
Sam: "That there's some good left in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."