Somewhere within me lives a memory of rain hitting a tin roofed house. That old house is gone but the memory stays with me. As a child, I had a terrible fear of storms, and the tin roof sound became a calming center on which I focused, leaving the flash and the crash outside.
Inside as I lay trembling in childhood fear, I pictured the storm as an ogre, resembling the Jolly Green Giant. Before I was old enough to understand the mechanics of summer storms, I felt that somehow I had displeased God and He was getting even.
Tonight I cower, a grown woman, ever cringing at the flash of lightning and tensing for the crack of thunder to come. Some things will never change. Outside my slightly opened window, I hear the rain pelting my greenhouse roof. It's made of plastic but I've discovered that I can close my eyes and bring forth memory of that singing tin roof from childhood. I lend it to my plastic cover and somehow find comfort.
While I feared as a child that God was unhappy with me, now I know the opposite to be true. He blesses me with rain to grow my garden and to wash the dust from my concrete stoop. And though I tremble before the storm's force, I am humble before the awesome power of it's Creator.
I hear the storm move away, pleased the blessing will fall somewhere else. Thunder rumbles a soft farewell and lightning teases the distant sky. My plastic roof becomes silent, and all that remains of a summer storm is the fragrance of a rain-washed breeze drifting in through my open window.
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