fighting discouragement on my knees

It is the calm before a storm,

an expectant hush as we wait under a swollen cloud.

"It has to rain! Look how heavy, the cloud!"

We wait, sure it cannot pass by without a drenching of all below.

The air is still. All is quiet, yet groaning, earth's mouth open wide.

My arms open wide.

Together we wait for a drink. Not for a trickle, not for the drops counted on a windshield, but for the rush of the waterfall, the puncture of the bag, the release of the torrent from behind the trembling gate.

A hard rain, the kind that forces us to find covering, the kind that reminds us that we are rather small.

It is the storehouse overflow, poured out to be received, a testimony to the God of the eleventh hour.

See now.

Look.

It comes.