It's falling from the clouds...

The torrential rain is back! It's been absolutely relentless this past couple of days... making me begin to wonder if there's any hope of my being able to wash and dry my laundry before I leave for Germany on Monday morning. As I lie in bed at night, all I can hear is the constant thudding of the rain - as if a gang of delinquent Wimbledon players were hurling tennis balls at the roof of my house. So this morning in our team meeting at the leadership retreat centre, I had to smile when we began to sing one of my favourite worship songs: the one in the picture above. The photo behind the words on the screen looked just like the reality of the weather outside; and the line about "cannons in the night" reminded me of the powerful beat of the rain as I made my way to bed last night. I have to confess that I'm not a great fan of rain... but the sheer power of it is nonetheless a reminder of how powerful and mighty our Creator God is.

When I went upstairs to my room last night, I discovered that all three cats - who have tended to sleep outside on the terrace over the past few months - had made their way indoors and each had found its own spot to settle down in my room. Generally speaking, they don't seem to mind the rain if it's not too heavy.... but the noise and strength of our autumn downpours seems to be a bit much for them, and they all choose to take refuge in a safe place. It reminded me of that verse in Psalm 32, where it says of God, "You are my hiding place." It's probably not the rain that we're hiding from, but there are plenty of other challenging situations in life, where it helps to know that God truly is our refuge and strength.

Even as I've been writing this, I took a moment to check the weather forecast and see whether I can plan to throw some laundry in the washing machine tomorrow morning. Things look hopeful: it seems as if it's probably going to be dry and sunny again tomorrow. I also took a look the weather forecast for southern Germany, though (I'm going to be two days near Munich and four days in the Black Forest region) and you can imagine my dismay when I discovered that it's snowing in Stuttgart at the moment! It looks as if the temperature will be below zero for some of the days that we are in Altensteig. I'll have to bring my winter clothes out of storage when I'm packing my suitcase tomorrow.

Well, it's getting dark now, but the grey clouds are also looming, so I guess I'm going to hear more "cannons in the night" and find the cats seeking shelter in my room again tonight. Somehow the rain doesn't seem quite as bad, and I'll be particularly thankful for tomorrow's sunshine, now that I'm facing the prospect of snow and ice next week :-)