Rain

I live on 20 acres of beautiful pasture. My family and I have lived on this piece of land for 2 years. Our house is set at the back of the property, over a creek and up a slight hill. The view from our living room window is to the west, so every evening we are treated to an explosion of color as the sun sets below the horizon. Many times I have sat down transfixed at the neon shades of purple, pink, blue and yellow thrown into the sky around the setting sun as if the supply of color was limitless.

I wish I could say that this view is free. You see, I wish I could say that this view was easy to get and inexpensive to maintain. Well, it isn't. I am not saying it isn't worth it. I am just saying that it has a cost. You see to get this view my house is set on top of the hill farthest from the road. If it were closer to the road, the trees that grow along the border of the road would block my view of the western sky. Dust from the traffic on the gravel road would settle on my windows spoiling the already limited view. That is why we could not build closer to the road. Aesthetics would simply not allow it.

But you see, to get to the top of that far hill I have to cross an innocent shallow creek that is dry far more that it is wet. In fact, we built our house during a drought, so I almost never saw water running through this little hazard. It would only be a minor problem. I mean look at it. Dry, shallow, innocent, sleepy, it was all of these things.

Yes, it was all of these things until last summer. The spring and summer of 07 marked a violent end to the drought of 06. Our sleepy, innocent creek flooded at least a half dozen times because of rainstorms that would pour multiple inches of rain on our area in just a few hours. Each time one of these freaks of nature happened, the gravel that we had used to construct our creek crossing went rushing into Shawnee Lake. In between storms it was all we could do to keep our 1/4 mile long drive drivable.

Gravel is not cheap. It seems like it ought to be but it is not. The gravel that we put on our drive has to be hauled from a quarry and stored at a gravel lot. Then it has to be loaded onto large trucks and hauled to my drive. I say to this only to explain why it took us so long to replace the gravel that we lost. In fact, it was only 3 weeks ago that we decided to splurge to buy a single load of gravel to place on the most woeful place in our driveway. This spot was a large mudhole just before the actual creek crossing. Everytime we crossed it in one of our vehicles we thought we would have to be hauled out of it with a tractor, but everytime we we beat the odds and made it to work, or to school, or to church or just out of there.

Before we bought the gravel we made careful preparations. We wanted the ground to be dry enough to get the tractor in to spread the gravel where it needed to go. We wanted to make sure we would have a decent weather window so that we would be able to get our work done without a storm interfering in the work. We thought all was well. The gravel truck dumped the gravel, and then I got on my tractor and spread it where it needed to go. All was well until the unpredictable Oklahoma weather stepped in. All of the weather reports said, "light rain." Well, inspite of being in the middle of the weather prediction universe they got it wrong.

You see, within two days of dumping gravel a supercell thunderstorm formed and parked its precipitation laden backside right over my property. I watched thinking, "It will pass. It must pass soon. These freaks of nature surely can't happen all the time." Well, truth be told they don't. Neighbors told me that in all of the 50 plus years that they had lived on my road they had never seen the number and intensity of rainstorms that we had seen this past year. The rareness of the event did not move me to awe. It move me to anger. What do I do when I experience righteous anger over events like this. Well, I'll tell you. I pray.

I wish I could tell you that I pray a nice submitted prayer like, "Thank you God for blessing us with your merciful gift of rain." Nope. My prayer was a whining, complaining, frustrated mess. "God, I just put gravel down. Could you be merciful to me and move this storm on its way? Don't let it park here and wash my gravel away. I am your servant. Don't you care that I bought this property to honor you?" This I prayed in the middle of the night listening to heavy raindrops pound into my roof and blow onto my windowpanes. I was frustrated. God, was quick to answer. As soon as my last prayerful request passed my lips, the weather radio began a loud monotonous wail. I got up to check. It said, "Attention: Bethel Acres, you are under a flash flood warning. You have already recieved a lot of rain but you aint seen nothin' yet!"

I cursed under my breath, but apparently louder than thought because it awakened my wife. She said, "What was that for?" I explained my problem with gravel and the elements and God's quick answer to my prayer. Her only response was, "You better be careful."

Well, let me tell you. I was tired of being careful... Sick and tired of being careful. My whining became an angry rant because I knew that I had just received my answer from the Lord. "Trent, shut up your whining. If I want to flood the world I can. You chose this place to build your house. Your a smart guy. You knew what creeks do when it rains, so don't build your house under a mountain and complain about the avalanche. Don't build your house in the flood zone and whine about the rain. Don't..."

Believe me I got the point.

Last night I was sitting in my living room. Believe it or not the pinks were little more electric, and the blues were just a little brighter and...