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Driving from Dallas to Houston through the driving rain in the wee hours of the morning, I soon found myself out of the range of my default sports talk radio station.
So, I turned to my trusty Amazon music collection.
Something about a rainy morning driving away from home brings on a warm and bitter melancholy. It isn’t long before the mind wanders along the trails, the highways, and bi-ways of a life as unexpected and painful and glorious and beautiful as any ever imagined by novelist or storyteller.
As if to createa soundtrack formy thoughts, the music selection set to “random play” lands a on a song by one of my favorite singer/songwriters. There he is, singing his haunting, beautiful song, summarizing how I am feeling about this life youand I have built together…
Any relationship that stands the test of time must withstand its share of storms.It may have begun with sunshine and song, but the thunderstorms will soon roll in.
For us, the first real challenge came in 1983, when we learned God had selected us to provide guidance, love, and hope to a child born with a physical disability.
And the thunder rolled.
The dark clouds of doubt and the chill winds of despair swept across our souls like a mercilesswind on an emptyTexas prairie, howling its insults, whispering its accusations.
In 1989, at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, a million miles from home, we waited 12 hours while a team of skilled and heroic doctors fought mostly in vain to give new structure to our daughter’s badly damaged frame.
We were young parents, feeling our way along, clinging to faith, grasping for hope, begging God for wisdom and strength.
There would be other storms, of course. Like the loss of everything we had ever known professionally, when we were left clinging to one another and the few friends and family that remained at the moment.
I never liked the rain ’til I walked through it with you.
It’s ironic how the most painful experiences become precious memories, mile markers alongthe roadof a successful, rewarding, fulfilling, can’t-imagine-it-any-other-way life.
All thatwe are and all that we have is the result of everywhere we have been, everyone we have met along the way, and everything we have endured, cherished, celebrated, mourned, loved, lost, found…
And here I am, more than three decades removed from the altar and “I do”… like the rain…falling for you.
