Rain pelted against the car window leaving tear-like streaks down the pane. I glanced over my shoulder to look at my daughter. With her chin resting in her hands, she stared forlorn out the window looking sad that the rain had dampen our plans for an after dinner nature walk.

“It’s duck weather,” She stated. “The kind of weather the ducks like.”

I can recall several times I have had to slow down the wheels of my car to allow a precession line of ducklings cross a busy intersected road following in their mama’s webbed footprints. It happens along the edge of the road that lines the river through the city. One can often see a lineup of cars patiently waiting for them to cross. And as my daughter’s statement ruminated in my head, the behaviour of those white feathered birds intrigued me.

Ducks pull themselves from the comfort of the water and head to land in the rain for they know they can access insects and larvae more easily when the rain begins to soften the dry earth. And apparently they don’t actually like the rain- especially harsh drenching rain- for it’s harmful to the delicate nature of ducklings. But they lift themselves out of the river and embrace the rain for they trust and know that the rain will replenish it with water.

Oh, how often we allow the storms of life threaten us. When the rains begin to pour, we allow it to dampen our spirit often forgetting how many storms we have already weathered that did not destroy us. How easily we forget not only how to trust, but why we trust the One who is bigger than the storm itself.

My teaching will drop like rain; my words will fall like dew. They will be like showers on the grass; they will pour down like rain on young plants.
Deuteronomy 28:24

Perhaps we need to learn a little something from the ducks. When the rains of life start to fall, let us trust that we can access Christ’s power more easily as the landscape of our soul becomes more vulnerable. We can turn to His promise that through those moments He is not only teaching us but refining our character. And when the drenching rains start to flow threatening to drown us, let us embrace the storm trusting and knowing that by that very power He will replenish us seeping into the very depths of our needs. When we fail to learn how to trust in the Lord, we remain infants- duckings- in our faith and the inevitable harsh rains of life will only bring us harm.

Father, when life begins to look and feel dreary, and the rains make their appearance, help me to trust and know that you are God. Replenish me with your presence as I learn to embrace the storm. In Jesus name, amen.