It THUNDERED in Church this morning.

[Cow Poke]

And we praised God for it.

Unless you have been in a sustained deep drought, you'll probably think this is silly.
My wife works at Texas A&M where the folks keep a close eye on things like agriculture and weather - particularly rainfall. We are more than TWO FEET of rain behind our annual average. The experts are concerned that we seem to be in a ten year weather pattern of drought. This would kill the already ailing cattle industry, cotton, rice.... soy... other crops.

I have watched the weather radar as it shows promises of large weather patterns approaching our area with promising rain, only to see those patterns fall apart as they reach us. And we stay dry. We have recently had the wildfires just 6 miles from our house which raged for over a week and burned up thousands of acres and hundreds of homes, and we hoped for rain. The parched ground has opened up cracks where you can stick your whole hand down past your wrist. Local tanks (ponds) are bone dry, the fish having died on dry ground and been carried off by the birds.

This morning, as I began my sermon, I heard thunder. I continued to preach, but my mind was wandering as I heard the thunder getting closer. The roof of our building is metal, so when the rain began cascading down, it was an incredibly blessed sound. I stopped preaching.

I heard some quiet "amens" and some "Thank you Jesus" and some "glory", but, for the most part, the congregation just sat there, listening to the rain. I started to speak, but couldn't -- words would not come out.

Then an older gentleman over to my right began singing softly, "Oh Lord, My God... When I in Awesome Wonder.... consider all.. (others began joining in) the worlds thy hands have made... I see the stars... I hear the rolling thunder ----- and just then there was a LOUD clap of thunder that seemed to shake the building, and we all chuckled a bit -- it was as though it were right on cue.

Then Jim continued... "Then sings my soul.. my Savior, God to Thee... How Great Thou Art......."
and we all joined in. And when we were done, I just stood silent, and somebody else began singing the doxology ... "Praise God from whom all blessings flow...."

The rain pounded the roof making a loud blessed racket, the thunder roared, tears flowed, and we sang.

It THUNDERED in Church this morning!

[Xru]

That's great CP. If'n the Apocalypse comes I wanna go to your church;)

[Rayado]

While it's not the Good News, it's definitely some good news for you Texans!

[Cow Poke]

While it's not the Good News, it's definitely some good news for you Texans!

But you can certainly see some parallels, eh?

If I shut up the windows of heaven that there be no rain....

[Cow Poke]

It has rained pretty much all day -- still sprinkling a bit. It is wonderful.

[ke7ejx]

That's so wonderful! Our God is certainly one of miracles!

[Raphael]

Reminds me of the time when at a music festival, a young man was praying with a friend of mine. At the festival was a group of hippies/new-agers who were camping in tipi's. Well this young man prayed that God would smash through to them. That afternoon one of the biggest hail storms to have happened in the area flattened the tipi's (tents with big holes in the middle don't do well in hail storms.

[arnoldo]

A Jungian may claim it was merely an example of synchronicity that someone was singing "I hear the rolling thunder" while actual thunder shook the building. . .

[Cow Poke]

A Jungian may claim it was merely an example of synchronicity that someone was singing "I hear the rolling thunder" while actual thunder shook the building. . .

No foolin.