Somewhere past Toad Suck Park and Pickle Gap, a cabin nestles in the foothills of the Ozarks—the cabin I called home last week. I spent the Fourth of July in an Arkansas cabin outside of Mountain View, home to hillbilly humor and watermelon seed spittin’ contests. I witnessed both.
My favorite part of the trip wasn’t the mandolins and the fiddles or the craft shows and clogging. Even fireworks with a mountain backdrop couldn’t compete with my most memorable moments—the time spent in the rocking chair on the cabin’s front porch.
One evening as I sipped tea on the porch a storm rolled over the mountains. Thunder and lightning punctuated the drama, followed by gentle raindrops. I closed my eyes and listened to the rain move over the mountains, then across the valley, and finally over our cabin. Then the storm churned again, over and over that night. More thunder, more lightning, more drizzle. A majestic midnight.
The next morning I cradled another cup of tea and watched the rain diminish, the mist rise, and the mountains clear before me as more rain announced its arrival. The drama continued, but the splendor wasn’t in thunder and lightning. It was in the quiet drizzle and the majesty of the mist rising on the mountains.
I was a privileged witness.
I felt like a child eavesdropping on a whispered conversation between adults. But this storm, these raindrops, this mist rising in the mountains—this was a secret place reserved for God alone. God spoke in the storm, and He whispered in the gentle drizzle. And He beckoned me, even welcomed me, in those sacred moments.
“God sometimes does His work with gentle drizzle.” (John, the monk, in the movie Amazing Grace)
