31 Days of the Little Way: A Bunny in the Rain

We woke up and it was raining. It rained all day. Just when I thought it couldn’t rain any harder, the storm picked up, and the rain came down in sheets.

A fall weekend can be the perfect time to play outside, enjoying brisk, dry weather.

Instead we were all inside for most of the day.

So our boys built a fort out of the couch.

We sat together and read Scooby-Doo choose-your-own-adventure books.

The plastic Army soldiers marched around the boys’ bedroom floor. One boy finished a school project, while his brother played the piano.

Not every moment was perfect. There were hurt feelings and broken rules and frustration that the rain was coming down so hard that we couldn’t run even a simple, local errand. This is real life, after all.

But at one point we looked outside and saw a rabbit hiding under one of our bushes. The rain was streaming down around the bush, but he was sitting, ears pressed against his back, just waiting quietly for the rain to stop.

He didn’t look impatient or restless or worried.

He was just…sitting.

“I want to go help him,” our younger son said. “We need to do something for him.”

But he didn’t need us. If we went too close to him, he would probably run away scared and get soaked in the rain. And he was fine.

He was content to wait for the rain to slow or stop. He had a bush to sit under. God had given him what he needed—a safe spot under a bush.

And we had ours, too. We just needed to find the patience to rest and trust and be. Isn’t that the case so often, that we feel we should be doing more, working to change our situation, when perhaps God has it well in hand. He has placed us in the right spot to rest and wait. We just need to trust that the rain will slow and eventually stop. And all will be well. In fact, it already is.

Sometimes rain is an unexpected gift.