Rain Down Grace

As most of you, today was the first day in almost 2 weeks that we saw any sunlight in Wisconsin. Though I missed it because I was driving home from St. Louis, I did get to enjoy some of my own sun this weekend as well, but the point is that prior to today, we have been living with the welcoming of fall through cold, dreary, rainy weather.

Let me tell you, walking to class in rain is no fun at all; even if you have a rain jacket or an umbrella, it's impossible to stay dry if you have to go to class in rain. Even worse is if you have to do it all day, by the time you get home at the end of the day you are soaked and cold. Water is everywhere; it infiltrates every piece of clothing you're wearing, you have to take you books out of your backpack to make sure the pages dry out, you just feel wet.

The other day I got home from walking in a downpour, I didn't even realize how cold I was until I changed out of my wet jeans and into sweats and the warmest sweatshirt I have and realized I was still freezing. I was "dry," but it was like the cold rain had infiltrated my very being. I took a hot shower to try to "reverse" the rain, but even hours later, I could still feel the rain with me a little.

As we went through the week with rain on and off the whole time, that "rain feeling" was in the back of my mind all week, then on Thursday night at Primetime we sang a song called Rain Down Grace and of course that theme of rain hit me again. I've looked all over for a recording of this song, but can't find one anywhere, so here's at least the lyrics:

Come let us return to the Lord
With all of our hearts (2x)

(men) As sure as the rising of the sun
(women) He will come to us
(men) Like spring rains that water all the earth
(women) He will come to us
(everyone) He will come to us, yes He will come to us

And He will rain down grace
He will rain down grace
Yes He will rain down grace on us

We sang this chorus a ton of times and I just sat there thinking about how intrusive the rain had been all week. I couldn't escape it, no matter how hard I tried, when it was raining, I was soaked, water was everywhere and it just stayed with me, cold in my bones reminding me I was stuck in rain earlier that day. Isn't it amazing that that's how grace is?!?!

Grace like rain, I mean really ponder that for a second. There's no escaping it, God wants to shower you in this sweet, intrusive, all-encompassing forgiveness that's going to soak you to the bone and stay with you forever. It's going to hit every piece of who you are, those big huge gaping this in your life that are sitting out there for everyone to see and those small nooks and crannies of life that you have so secretly hidden from everyone's (except God's) sight. As believer's God's covering them all, soaking us in His love whether we like it or not, and believe me, there are sometimes when I don't like. Times when maybe it seems easier to keep going in sin, instead of being reminded by that feeling in your bones, that you're living a life made possible by grace like rain through the Savior's death on a cross. But you can't, there's no shaking the indescribable truth that is the Father's love shown in grace, and I love that!

Romans 6:1-7--What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.