When it rains… and it’s one of those weeks.

You know those weeks…

You have two dogs and one runs off and the other dog howls on the porch half the day. You think it’s the TV or the three-year-old making crazy wolf calls in the family room, but then you realize it’s your dog. Your broken-hearted dog laying in the rain howling out his loneliness.

Please God, let that dog come home. If she doesn’t come home, we’ll lose both of them. Buck won’t make it without Nala. Our kids named these dogs, love these dogs, please bring Nala home.

And the rain pours down.

Then your kid throws up. With backpack swung over his shoulder on his way out the door for school, he throws up. And it’s only Monday. Just the start of your week.

But the dog comes back and you breathe a prayer of thanks. Wet, stinky dogs in the house with sick kids. Two kids down now, and it’s Tuesday. Just Tuesday. One is developing a rash on his face. We don’t react to rashes around here. After child number four, what’s a little rash?

By Wednesday afternoon, it’s time to react. You’re certain a staph infection is all over your toddler’s face. So you see the doctor and get the medicine and don’t make it home to fix dinner. It’s well past dinner, but you’re home, soaked from the rain with a forty-pound three-year-old falling asleep on your shoulder. You put him to bed early and sigh with relief. Thank you, Lord for antibiotics and Motrin PM.

The Motrin PM’s for you.

By midnight, you regret that Motrin PM. Your toddler’s wide awake. Maybe it’s a side affect of the antibiotic. You can hardly stay awake. Your Motrin’s affect. But you thank the Lord your headache’s gone. At least until four a.m. when it roars back because you’ve been up most of the night.

You sleep like the dead for two hours, and by six-thirty, you’re up making four lunches with your reading glasses on because you can hardly see a sandwich, but nobody’s throwing up, and you thank the Lord his mercies are new every morning.

But the strangest thing begins to plague you. You can’t stop praying for your twenty-one-year-old daughter away at college. You pray for her until eight-thirty a.m., a reasonable time to call your prayer partner. You’ve had your coffee, read your Bible, but you still don’t feel any better about your daughter.

“I just am so worried for her safety and it won’t go away,” you tell your friend who has prayed every day with you for years. Ten years of praying for your kids together. Daily. Except on weekends. You don’t pray on weekends because Saturdays you deep clean your house and Sundays you deep clean your soul. At church.

You don’t know how you’d make it through the week without church.

It’s Thursday, you’ve just hung up the phone with your prayer partner and it’s still raining. Praise the Lord, California needs all this rain! But after praying with your prayer partner, you’re out at the woodpile in the downpour, and you’re still worried about your daughter. The logs are wet. You are wet. And the dogs are really wet and all muddy too, but will still want to come in the house. At least they’re both there. Those two labs you dearly love at your side in the rain.

Once the fire is roaring, the rain pouring, you text your daughter a message. Love you. Miss you. Please call when you have time. You keep your texts short and sweet and to the point because your daughter’s an independent girl.

You don’t want to be a dependent mom.

You know that mom.

The one who runs her kids to the doctor all the time. You don’t do that. You let the rash spread like chicken poxes all over your kid’s face. You’re not that mom who hovers over her kids 24-7. Who has the time and energy to helicopter her heart out like that?

Seven kids will shoot that helicopter right out of the sky.

If your kids aren’t bleeding, they’re okay. Even a little blood’s okay.

It’s okay.

But you can’t stop praying for your daughter. She’s the kind of kid who jumps off bridges to swim in rivers and sneaks away to skydive. Really, she’s done that. And plenty more.

So you try not to worry about her. But when she keeps popping into your head, and you have the overwhelming urge to hit your knees as rain pounds the windows, you know something’s wrong.

Something’s got to be wrong.

But then she sends you a Pinterest pin.

One of your favorite quotes. This is how you know she’s still alive at college. Facebook and Pinterest and sometimes a text from her. But she comes home at least once a week to play with her brothers, and give you a hug, so she’s okay.

So you breathe a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks after that pin, but the prayer of thanks comes right back and hits you in the face. Pray more. Keep praying. Don’t stop praying for Lacy.  

You know the Holy Spirit is prompting all this, so you pull out the big guns. Your six-year-old who says the best prayers on the planet. You tuck G2 into bed and ask him to say an extra special prayer for his sister tonight. A prayer for Jesus to keep Lacy safe. And G2’s little voice overflows with faith, and you feel better for about an hour.

Then it’s nine p.m., and you’re in bed, and the urge to pray is overwhelming once more.

“Scott please pray for Lacy’s safety.”

“Why?” Scott says in bed beside me with his nose in a Bible.

“I’m just worried about her and it won’t go away.”

So Scott prays, a little prayer for Lacy, and a lot of prayer for me. Because he knows the “it” that won’t go away is fear, a well-known enemy in my life. And tonight that wolf of fear howls on the porch.

So I pray. I pray really hard for my girl.

And then my phone and Scott’s phone buzz at the same time. A text from Lacy. This breezy, little I’m okay kind of text. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. I’m just in the ER because I took an energy pill at the gym before working out this afternoon and my heart’s a little messed up.

What?!

I spring out of bed and call my daughter. She actually answers the phone on the first try. This never happens. And I can tell after two words, she’s crying. And scared. Sad and scared. And she sent me that pin from the hospital. I can’t get dressed fast enough.

“You aren’t driving down there, I am,” says Scott. We are both in the closet dressing together as fast as we can.

“Please let me go.” I’m putting on my boots without socks.

“You’re a girl. You’re not going. It’s late. It’s raining. I’m going.”

Why is the opening of Hunger Games tonight of all nights?! 

Luke wanted to go to the midnight showing with his friends, but Scott put his foot down. After a little frustration from both parties, the 10 o’clock premiere was agreed on, and that’s where the boy who can babysit is right now. It’s 9:35 p.m. My mind spins with possibilities. “Maybe we can get Luke home so we can both go to Lacy.”

“No, you need some sleep. You were up most of last night with the Kraken.” The legendary sea monster of great proportions that destroys ships. This is what Scott calls Cruz these days.

This is what I don’t want to face. Four little boys asleep in their beds. One of us needs to stay home. But I’m desperate to see my daughter’s face. The girl who’s been given charcoal pills and IVs and potassium, and still her heart is out of whack.

My heart is out of whack too.

She waited six hours to call her parents!

Thank you, Lord, Lacy’s only an hour away. 

After Scott and I pray in each other’s arms, he walks out the door into the rain, and I pick up my Bible.

It all makes sense now, why I’ve prayed all day for Lacy. And as I pray now, I remind myself I’ve prayed all year for this rain too that has begun to get to me. Two years of praying for rain because the drought is so bad. And it’s not really the rain that’s messed up my week. It’s looking for the dog in the rain. And a trip to the doctor in the rain with Cruz covered in staph. And Scott driving to the ER an hour away in the rain. To see Lacy. Without me.

When it rains it pours.

And as I read my Bible, cry, and pray, peace finally rains down. She’s going to be okay. I’m doing something. Trust me, God whispers to my heart.

All day, all week, really, I’ve waited for this Voice of Life to bring me peace. Just like I’ve waited for this rain to bring life to California.

Finally.

It’s Friday.

I’m up again in the night, waiting for a teenager who has missed his midnight curfew. But the rash is nearly gone from Cruz’s face, and Lacy is safe in her bed here at home with us with her heart beating normally. Both dogs are in their kennel tonight, sharing the same warm dog house, and nobody is throwing up.

Thank you, Jesus.

California is turning sweetly green by the end of the week and Luke arrives safely home by 1:15 a.m. I welcome my son at the door, tell him I love him, and leave the discipline to his dad the next day. It’s only taken one teenage son to teach me to give hugs and keep my mouth shut most of the time.

Time to celebrate Saturday morning. Six kids at home, the married kid next door, and everyone’s healthy. A little rain and then an afternoon of sunshine. Thank you, Jesus.