How to S.T.O.P. (Or Sitting in the Rain and Loving It)

After a snowstorm earlier this month, rain assaulted this house on Layton.

Rain in January. An icy, damp, chilling, and generally depressing bit of weather.

In mid-afternoon the kitchen lights blazed in premature twilight. The kettle hissed on the stove, and I refilled my cup with another variety of Tazo. A week's worth of mail lay helter-skelter across the kitchen table. Bills, advertisements, late Christmas cards, early birthday cards, catalogs, a few large manila envelopes, even a package. The pile that awaits a vacationer upon her return.

Rain pelted the kitchen window. The wind hurled the snow shovels across the porch, and they clattered about.

I sorted the heap of mail carelessly, tossing fliers and ads on the floor, and randomly choosing to open any envelope that caught my eye.

Here was a Christmas photo of my sister's family. Her annual holiday letter, always creative and lengthy, recounted the achievements of my niece and nephews through the past year. They had launched successfully from high school to college. I relished the list of accomplishments. News worth tweeting about.

I recognized Joan's broad, flourishing strokes on a card. We rarely see each other, but year after year, she never forgets to send a birthday wish.

I opened several more birthday cards, a few with small gifts tucked inside, from friends, separated by distance or long absence, and some from friends near, faithful remember-ers.

A yellow envelope, stuck with customs forms and the profile of Queen Elizabeth, could only be from cousin Ann in Wales. Her annual holiday gift from the Celtic kingdom by the sea. One year she sent a Welsh cook book. Another year a book of Welsh sayings. This year's souvenir - a CD of two Welsh tenors singing carols in their guttural, native language. It reminded me of my personal favorite among Welsh tenors - my grandfather.

I wanted to save the brown-papered box as the last piece of mail, but it wouldn't wait. Eddie's careful cursive and the San Francisco postmark called me. My translator during a visit to China fourteen years earlier, Eddie maintained our friendship. He left China during the ensuing years, and he lives now as an American. The package captured the flavor of  Frisco: a bag of Ghirardelli chocolates and a small ceramic horse, a reminder from Chinatown of the Year of the Horse.

A "Year of the Horse" reminder from Eddie.

I STOPPED and stuffed a few of the Ghirardelli in my mouth, sipped a bit more Tazo, and savored every minute of this gray-day-turned-sunshiny at my disheveled table.

In a recent Bible study, teacher Beth Moore encouraged me to S.T.O.P. everyday and Savor The Observable Presence of God.

This afternoon I knew God sat with me at that messy table in my rain-pelted house. His presence sang from each piece of mail. Love in one. Grace in another. Blessing in a third. The United States Postal Service deals in heavenly business!

God doesn't forget birth-days or ordinary days. He delights in showering us with blessing anytime. I sat indoors, drenched in those rain showers. It was warm and sweet.

A final card, not meant for a birthday but heaped with blessing, simply left me breathless. Nestled inside was a gift that would pay for an entire year of  "The Voice of Hope," our blog talk radio show into China.

That winter afternoon there was no outside world, no clattering on the porch, no concern about the mess on the table, just a kitchen aglow with His observable presence. HE filled the room. And I . . . I savored the beauty of basking in His love and attention and sitting in the rain.

STOP and Savor The Observable Presence of God in your life today.