From where I am sitting I can see the raindrops trickle down the leaves of my newly planted petunias. I see the Lizard family running for their home deep inside the foilage of last year’s Lantana plantings. I see the flash of lightning cut across the sky and hear the distant rumble of thunder as the sky grows dark again. We are entering the rainy season here in Florida. My favorite time of year.

What I Would Have Missed If Every Day Were Sunny

1. Pleasant Memories. Sitting on the front porch snapping peas with my mother. It was raining and a grand storm was brewing off the North Carolina coast. As a child growing up in a turbulent household, I understood that there was little that could comfort my mother. Yet, when it rained, it was as though the storms inside her were somehow stilled for a moment in time.
2. Quiet Time. As the clouds drift in and the rain begins I always find myself thanking God for time to stay inside. To read a good book, watch a good movie, or take a nap. It seems that when it is sunny, my To Do list reads like a travel itinerary. Sunny days weren’t meant to be wasted…but rainy days…those are like a permission slip from God that says…take today off and just listen to the rain.
3. Beauty of a Tin Roof. If you have never fallen asleep under a tin roof during a rainstorm you must put this on your list of Things To Do on your next birthday. Although our current roof is not made of tin, sometimes when it rains I will stand by my stove and I can hear the pitter patter of the drops as it hits the metal air vent…call me crazy. The sound of rain on a tin roof always makes me want to take a nap.
4. My Daughter’s Joyful Noise. Because of an extreme skin condition, my daughter was not able to run through sprinklers as a child. On her first run through she would come out the other side welting up with hives. Then we discovered nature’s alternative - rain. We would have ‘rain parties’. We would gather up her friends and they would play in the rain with cheerful yelps and hollers. It was a marvelous sight to see…even though the laundry room clean up was a bit taxing on those particular days…it was worth every wet and often muddy minute of it.
5. Monsoon Season. For a brief time during my husband’s military career we called Arizona home. We arrived one dark and stormy night during what we later learned was ‘Monsoon Season’. We were driving in from the interstate onto the desert road that would lead us to our new, ‘temporary’ home when right before our eyes we saw a sight that I will never forget. It was dark, yet the lightning was so intense it lit up the entire sky and along that sky was the outline of the Huachuca Mountains. It was an incredible sight to see. A powerful display of God’s glory that no Disney tech can ever duplicate It would rain and storm for days on end, but it was a show that we never wanted to miss. Our home was at the foot of those mountains and we had a front row seat from which to enjoy the spectacular rainy season of Arizona called ‘Monsoon Season’.
   

   Originally published May 30, 2006 in the original Whippoorwill Chronicles.

It’s rainy season again here in Central Florida. We went to bed last night with an ordinary backyard and woke up this morning with a carpet of these:

Thanks to Heather for inspiring me to look beyond the mushrooms as being a nuisance and grabbing my camera to capture their ‘hidden’ beauty.

There’s a 90% chance of rain all day today and into late evening. It’s a good day to dig into that stack of books I checked out of the library yesterday.

How about you? What do you love about rainy days?

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