Umbrellas

The long line of umbrellas look like modest rain igloos built around each soul.  The rain torrential.  I spy my girl waiting for her train, pulling her umbrella as close as should could to her head, her face.  

Everything was perfectly still.  It was as if for a few seconds, time stopped.  I knew in just a moment, everything would start again but my heart told me to capture this.

This is what quiet looks like.  This is the moment before everything else.  This is the moment I typically rush through waiting to get to the next thing.  But not today.  In my eyes, the rain looked like suffering, and the umbrellas translated to the cold clear message that I don’t like it and I never did. 

I held out my hand; the rain poured in.  It wasn’t so bad.  My hand was wet but it didn’t soil, or pain or scar.  The glistening of the water seemed to tell its own story and I felt much more in touch with something I typically run from. 

What if I leaned more into the painful parts of life?  What if I stopped to figure out why they hurt?  What if the message of their angst is something I am supposed to learn from instead of run from? What if that moment, that decision, that willingness to stand in it is the beginning of healing?

What if I took my umbrella down so that the world could see the hurt?  

Would they let me see theirs as well?

When did we start believing that showing pain, and talking pain and being honest is a bad thing?  Perhaps even more subtly we have determined we are not the marching Christian soldier if our legs are weak and our hearts ache.

I determine that honesty must be as much a goal of the inward soul as it is the outward speak.

I realize some hurts cannot be wished away or covered up;  the healing comes in the revealing. 

So, we let the rain fall and the tears well.  They wash away the notion of perfection and pride and they invite something too.  The suffering child finds the Father who has known suffering.  The lonely finds company.  The pain is not displaced it finds its place and light shines where darkness stood.