Skip to content ↓

Flowers Springing Up in the Rain

Flowers Springing Up in the Rain

In the past couple of years I have learned more about cemeteries than I would ever have cared to know. I have learned about purchasing plots and commissioning monuments. I have learned about proper etiquette and how different cultures relate to their dearly departed in very different ways. I have learned that a grave offers a place to go to grieve and, as importantly, a place to leave grief behind for a time.

One thing we learned quickly is that while a cemetery will take great care in burying a loved one, raising a monument, and sodding over the stark, bare earth, they will take very little care in watering that grass or ensuring that it grows and thrives. Once the grave is closed and the grass replaced, they will offer only the barest maintenance. That’s true, at least, of the cemetery we chose for our son.

We cannot tolerate the thought of Nick’s grave being covered in dry, brown grass. We cannot tolerate the thought of it becoming overgrown with weeds. We cannot tolerate the thought of it looking overlooked and abandoned. And so we tend to it with great care. We visit it regularly. We water it diligently. We maintain a tiny garden that sits up against the gravestone, adapting it to the seasons.

I might have been tempted to believe that grass would grow best if was only ever sunny and that flowers would thrive best under the constant glare of the sun. I might have been tempted to believe that days of gloom and cloud would slow progress and inhibit growth. But I have come to observe that this is not the case, for clouds bring rain and rain brings life. Meanwhile, unbroken sun quickly dries the ground and leaves it parched. We have come to look forward to dark skies and brooding clouds, for we know the grass will soon be greener, the flowers brighter and straighter, all of it more colorful and more beautiful.

You and I are not too different from grass and flowers, for as God sees fit to have them grow through sun and rain, he sees fit to have us grow through joy and grief. As it is his will that they display their beauty through good weather and bad, it is his will that we display our beauty through easy times and difficult. The beauty he wishes for us to display is the beauty of character that is heavenly rather than worldly, that is divine rather than so naturally human.

Such character does not come easily to us, for we enter the Christian life with long-established patterns of sinfulness and selfishness, of caring much for ourselves and little for others. For our lives to display godly beauty, we must be changed, we must be transformed. And this kind of transformation needs more than ease, more than merely good times.

If we are to be the Christians God wishes us to be, we must have sun and rain, clear days and cloudy.

For this reason God leads us into times of grief and sorrow, times of sickness and loss, times of pain and persecution. He knows that for us to truly thrive in this world and for us to truly be fit for what lies beyond it, we need both sun and rain, both joy and sorrow. In the bright sun of the best of times we may grow in love and joy and peace and patience, for these virtues tend to be the ones that spring up first and bloom fastest. But it is often only in the dark gloom of the worst of times that we grow in kindness and gentleness and self-control, for virtues like these tend to grow slowly and only under specific conditions. If we are to be the Christians God wishes us to be, we must have sun and rain, clear days and cloudy.

And so, as we approach times of sorrow and suffering, when they sweep over us with all their pain and all their tears, all their agony and all their uncertainty, we never need fear that God has forgotten us or forsaken us. We never need fear that we will emerge worse than we entered in. For God has ordained that these times are necessary for our growth, necessary for us to take on the beauty of godly character. God has ordained that we will be like flowers—flowers that spring up in the rain.


  • Carney Trump

    How Donald Trump Upended Canadian Politics and Helped the Liberals Win

    On April 28, Canadians elected the Liberal Party of Canada to a fourth consecutive term. This is a rare feat for a political party in Canada and in this case, one of special significance, for just months ago, the Liberals seemed destined for near-complete destruction. The cost of living was spiking, the quality of life…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 30)

    A La Carte: Young men wanted / The glory and danger of apologetics / God’s guidelines for sex aren’t arbitrary / How much is our church worth? / People loved the darkness / and more.

  • Erics Greatest Race

    Releasing Today: Eric’s Greatest Race

    My new book releases today! Eric’s Greatest Race is a fully illustrated graphic novel that tells young readers the story of Eric Liddell, the famous Olympian whose steadfast courage and commitment to Christ has inspired generations of believers. It is my sincere hope that it will introduce a whole new generation to a man whose…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (April 29)

    A La Carte: Has the decline of U.S. Christianity finally stopped? / Holding space for joy and sorrow / No one ever hated his own body / Wisdom principles for Christian parenting / The article you don’t want to read / A new book / Kindle deals / and more.

  • The Pursuit of Virtue

    God’s character is the essence of virtue. The heart of virtue is to know the Lord and to become like him, as a child resembles her father. That is the goal, privilege, and destiny of the redeemed. #Sponsored

  • When God Plants an Acorn

    When God Plants an Acorn, He Means an Oak

    We stood together on the crest of a hill, a gentle breeze rustling the meadow around our feet. The fields ran gently downward until they met a creek that gurgled happily in its course. A few years prior, an acorn had somehow made its way to the highest point of this hill, carelessly dropped there…