April Showers

By Liz Cowen Furman –

The thunder boomed. We ran to the windows and watched the rain come down in buckets. I felt like Noah. I looked down from the top of our 20% grade drive and saw several infant canyons forming.

That spring convinced me that there is no way it took several hundred millennia to create THE magnificent canyon. A few hundred wet springs max and voila, the Grand Canyon.

Matthew, our middle son, and I were home alone. We sprang into action with hoes and shovels. Toiling in the icy mountain spring rain, and with fervor, we attempted to redirect the torrents of water. Such a rare (to Colorado) wonderful wet spring caused the drainage gutters to overgrow with thick grass. We hadn’t even noticed the danger growing there. So, with nowhere to run, the water shed to our gravel driveway and more specifically to the middle of the drive.

As it flowed, it took with it the soil and gravel too weak to stand against the pressure and power of the rushing water.

Drenched to the bone and shivering as the clouds rolled away, I noticed several stones stayed put. Those anchored into the ground somehow managed to stand. Some of the trenches were over two feet deep and in only a few minutes.

We walked to the bottom of the driveway and were horrified to see literally several tons of gravel, sand and dirt on the paved street below our house.

I noticed so many analogies in that storm. First, in storms and life it seems, only those anchored to The Rock will stand the test of the really big ones. When tragedy strikes if we aren’t tethered to the Rock we wash out.

Then there is the sad realization that a super storm takes out not only those not anchored but as the water gushes, it sweeps away the surrounding bystanders too. There were several small rocks piled behind the big anchored ones left in the trenches. I want to be one that others can cling to in a storm, not because of me, but because I have the power of Him shining through me.

The most troubling analogy? The weeds that went unnoticed until it was too late. They just grew on the side of the road like some of the sins in our hearts. When the storm came, they kept the safeguard gutters from working. Since it is the time of year for April showers…I’m thinking it might also be time for some spring cleaning. Not just in my house and driveway, but in my heart as well.

The last observation really hit us, for days after the storm. With our wagon and shovels, we had to clean up from the mess the storm left. Just like the storms in our lives, if we let those things go unchecked, then we won’t stand strong in a storm and will have a mess to clean up, too.

If we had just taken inventory of our driveway, a little spring-cleaning, if you will, then when the storm blew through, all we would have had to do is a little emergency adjustment shoveling to make sure the water shed to the gutters.

Starting this spring, I want to do constant inventory so that when the storm rolls in I will be the one standing on the rock for others to cling to. How about you?