It’s raining – in my front yard – with the sun shining.

I finished eating my breakfast and writing a list at the dining room table. I was staring into nothingness toward the kitchen thinking and praying about a stack of checks. I turned to look out the living room window and I saw sunshine and glistening raindrops. It’s raining? I looked out the back and saw only shade on my patio and sunshine in the yard – no rain. I looked back toward the front to see if my eyes had been playing tricks on me. No. Glistening raindrops were floating to the ground amidst the sunshine.

So I watched. My whole field of vision outside the front windows was drippity, drip, drip showers. The water, as it catches on the branches and remaining leaves, shimmers in the sunshine. The drops in the air sparkle. Big, heavy drops. Rain and sunshine to my left, dry sunshine to my right.

I want to hear the rain, experience all the sights and smells and sounds of this phenomenon so I step out onto the front porch. I can see the lingering fog still trying to burn off in this late morning hour. My breath catches like a puff in the air showing me just how cold it really is. I cast my vision around the fullness of the front yard, the street and houses beyond and I notice something. The rain isn’t just in the front, it’s only in my yard. I shield my eyes to the brightness of the morning and look up at the sky to notice how blue and clear it is. There are no clouds above my yard or home. I look back at the trees and yard. I look high into the treetop at the sparkling branches. My trees are melting.

Apparently there was frost on the trees and the sunshine is melting it into raindrops in the yard. I’ve never experienced anything quite like this, or at least never noticed it in this way.

As I sat here looking at the glistening shower I thought of how knowing God, having His Spirit dwell and move and work within us, allows us to have joy in the midst of pain and suffering and trials (sunshine amidst the showers). How one’s own life can be in chaos, pain or turmoil, but right beside them or on the other side of the street others are moving along dry and sunshiny.

The frost will finish its melting; the rain will cease; the sun will dry the dew and the puddles. Even though it was cold and wet, the sunshine made it beautiful.

God uses our trials to refine us, to strengthen us, to turn us deeper into Himself. His Spirit at work in us gives us the joy and strength to walk through the storms and trials of our life. He is our sunshine; He is our light. He breaks through the darkest clouds and fears and gives us hope and joy.