We've been in a drought for quite awhile and it's finally raining outside. Not a deep downpour like we sometimes get, but slow and drizzly drops of wet. The faces of my plants are turned upward drinking in God’s nourishment. I watch amazed at His ability to provide just what they need. I too find myself in an upward battle, although not for nourishment as much as for answers. It would seem as though I find myself in the middle of a thunderstorm with no where to run. It’s been building for quite awhile. I could see it coming, but had hope it would pass over with little scathing. I was wrong. Everything in me wants to curl up in a corner and live in a state of gray gloom, just as the earth around me is today. Yet, I find even though a part of me is breaking inside, I have hope, deep inside, stored in my soul. Words of comfort often rise to the surface just when I need them most - I hear “Do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). I love the amplified version, “Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!] Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.” Once again I am reminded that the storms of life, which come and go, have a far greater purpose than what is right before my eyes. Romans 8:28 in the NLT states, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” So I lift my hands and tilt my head to the heavens and praise God as I rest in the assurance of his deep abiding promise to make something good out of something that is not.