Positive Things

Ask any high school girl who has been in my small group at church to name the FIRST thing we share each week in group. Their answer will be "positive things." This blog is dedicated to them. You see - some of them frequently find it difficult to find even one small positive thing that happened during the previous week - but eventually they find something - even if it is a something very simple or small. I write this to show that it is possible to find something positive even when the outlook over the last few days has been bleak.

Rain. It is one of my least favorite weather conditions. This thought is not new to those of you who know me. I love sunshine, snow, and even wind - but not rain. I don't necessarily think I disklike the idea of water falling from the sky - it is the gray that comes along with a rainy day.

If you have ever lived in Oregon you know that we have almost perfect summers - 3 months of beautiful moderate weather with lots of sunny days. It's the other nine months of the year where you can have frequent long stretches of a gray ceiling of clouds. You begin to wonder sometimes whether the sun will ever make a reappearance.

That's how it has felt around here the last few days. The continual days of rain have not only caused flooding but shut down virtually every route to the Oregon Coast. Here's a link to some video of the flooding and damage: Oregon Flooding. And not only that - Oregon's largest living thing, the Seaside Sitka, a giant Sitka Spruce tree was damaged and it certain to die after being on this earth for some 700 years. And - it's just been gray, gray, gray - with lots of rain - and not the nice slow kind.

I know at this point you're asking - what's positive about all of this? Let me share how I found the positive.

Last night I was meeting some friends to go see Beowulf in 3-D IMAX. We were going to meet at the Bridgeport Regal Cinemas for the 7:30 p.m. showing. Traffic was almost as bad as the weather, so I left directly from work. When I arrived at Bridgeport early enough to grab some food before the movie, I was immediately struck by how empty the shopping area seemed. I did not even have a problem finding a place to park. Then, I entered my restaurant of choice for lettuce wraps (California Pizza Kitchen) and found that there was absolutely no wait for a table! I think if you would have seen me you would have noticed when the little lightbulb went off in my brain...it was an immediate understanding of a "positive thing" about rain. Because of the rain, shoppers and eaters had all stayed away from Bridgeport - one of our local "California-style" outdoor shopping areas. I've always wondered who the genius was that thought an outdoor shopping center in Oregon was a good idea...

But last night it made for a change of brain processes - moving me from depressed and negative thinking about the rain into a slew of positive things. In the hour that I sat eating dinner, a myriad of positive things ran through my head, such as: How green everything is right now; That there are some great big puddles to drive through; That it might be raining hard enough to clean the top layer of dirt off of my truck. But it was the last thought that caught my attention the most. As I headedinto the movie theater, I had this thought: "Time to start building my own personal ark." I moved into remembering the story of Noah and the flood. And then - this scripture popped into my head:

"For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledgeof a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him." I Peter 3:18 - 22

That's it. THE positive thing.