Rain on the roof
Why have you brought us out to die in the desert
Where there is no food or water.
We could be at least be eating back in Egypt.
At Jumbo Crab, a small seafood restaurant in a Champaign strip mall, no one complains about the food. For two or three people, order a $45 Seafood Platter, which is presented in a big aluminum pan brimming with ½ pound of snow crab, ½ pound of head-on prawns, ½ pound of crawfish, 1 pound of mussels and 1 pound of clams. There are several small red potatoes, pieces of perfectly cooked broccoli , and a couple corns on the cob.
All this is covered with one of five sauces (from Cajun to garlic and butter), and seasoning as hot, or not, as you would like. Not only that, but everybody gets a plastic bib pictured with a crab, plastic gloves, and a bucket for your shells (we bring all that straight home to our chickens).
In the morning our friend Laura brought us a truck, muscled in the heavy stuff, and found solutions to problems time after time. That new office furniture never felt such love. Now we dove into our afternoon feast.
At the name of Jesus every knee should bend
And every tongue confess
That Jesus Christ is Lord.
At 2 pm the rain began to fall. And fall. And pour, and fall, and pour, and fall. The tent we sat in didn’t leak, and it sounded as much like heaven as I can imagine heaven sounding.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
When I was a boy, my 4-H leader/photography teacher Art Rohrer helped Dad build a long, rectangular machine shed with a metal roof. When it rained I retreated to the shed and sat in the old lawn chair beside Dad’s tractor and plow. The cool misty breeze blew in through the big open shed door, and I listened to the water come tumbling down.
Sometimes I took a nap. Those times were sweet then, and they are sweeter now. Naps these days are easier to come by, and my memories double down into the sacrament of the present moment.
I count those blessings now, and then. The difficulties and mistakes and misunderstandings that pervade every life, of course including mine, simply fall away.
We couldn’t finish all that gorgeous food with Laura. The next day Mom, John and I finished off the leftovers. Our hands were red and sticky with Cajun juice, seafood shells and satisfaction.
For God so loved the world
That he gave his only begotten Son
So that whoever believes in him
Will not perish but have eternal life.
Didn’t you memorize that verse before any other when you were a kid? I did, and it has not faded from my mind. God is good. All the time.
            (Numbers 21, Psalm 78, Philippians 2, John 3)
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