Walking in the Rain

I was awakened at about 3:00am by subtle flashes of lightning and the low rumble of an approaching thunderstorm. While I lay in bed awake, enjoying the sound of the rain, I remembered a wonderful experience with my mom when I was a child.

When I was young, my family had a dog. It was a mix of golden retriever, lab, and husky. It was an energetic dog and really loved going for walks. After sunset was the best time to walk a dog in Southeast Texas in the summertime. Texas summers are hot and humid, and it’s fairly common to get an afternoon or evening rainstorm.

One evening, we were walking the dog and is started to rain – and it wasn’t a dainty little rain. It was a big drop soaker kind of rain. People often seek shelter in the rain. This could have been one of those awful experiences with wet clothes, shoes, dog ….

Instead, my mom started singing and dancing! There was a song out at the time by Eddie Rabbitt called “I Love a Rainy Night” (Spotify). If you listen to it, the beat actually makes sense for walking in the rain. Of course, I wasn’t going to let her sing and dance alone, so I joined in!

Her ability to turn to music instead of being bummed or disappointed about the rain transformed the whole mundane experience of walking our dog in the rain that night. Her dancing and singing didn’t take away the rain, the heat, the humidity, or the fact that we had to walk the dog and pick up after it, but it changed my perspective of it and my attitude. Thanks, Mom!

Storms of all sorts affect our lives and the lives of others. In what ways can you walk with other people through their storms? Sometimes just walking with them is the best thing you can do. Sometimes, they might need you to sing and dance with them to help make the storms a little more tolerable.