Every day I talk to people who find cloudy rainy days bringing a sense of sadness to their day…yet why?  There is a true biological connection  between our mood, emotions and sunshine or lack thereof.  So,  for many people darker days with rain and without the healing rays of sunshine do actually have a very real sense of feeling depressed, “blue” or just “down”.

I stood at my side door the other day with the temperatures inching towards 80 and it really felt like summertime-finally-yet I could hear the distant rumble of thunder. It wasn’t long before the wind kicked in and within minutes the rain started falling…pouring…and I closed my eyes….I just listened and I smelled the rain.

The sense of smell is tied the strongest to our memory bank and in that moment as I closed my eyes I was taken back to the city streets of the town I grew up in.  I was taken back to my childhood. The sound of the falling rain and smell of wet grass and cooling city streets…I remembered running in the streets and down the sidewalks with my friends feeling the cool summer rain without a care in the world.  How was it that I could so quickly be taken back to that carefree time of simple summertime rainy day fun? Wasn’t it just 10 hours earlier as I was getting ready for work that I moaned to see I would have to start my day driving to work under a gloomy rainy sky?

Opening my eyes I’m reminded I live in a different city now far beyond the age of a child yet something in me would love to just run in the street and stop to feel the rain fall on my face…but then I think, “no, you’ll probably trip and break a hip or catch pneumonia or someone will think I need my own mental health professional- not that it would be a bad thing.

Thankfully I realize that I also have the blessing of having a childhood that offered me opportunity to play and run in the rain.  I don’t imagine we played in the rain when it was lightning but maybe it was a safer time when you didn’t need to lock your house door and lightning didn’t strike little kids playing in the rain.

It’s about perspective. Yes, too many cloudy rainy days in a row can actually affect a person’s mood yet we can also take a moment to be thankful for the rain. Some areas in our country are getting too much and now there’s flooding and sadly loss of life.  I know of another country living in a state of drought with people living in a chronic state of dehydration which also can end a life too soon.

I can’t stop the floods, I can’t bring the rain.  But I can pray to the One who can.  I also realize that there may be those who see the rain and may close their eyes and smell the aromas that may take them back to a terrifying memory from their past. I pray they find healing…

I am praying for the floods to recede and the rain to fall where there is drought  AND if you see someone who looks like they could be a gramma and she  is standing in the rain with her face looking upward it could be me smelling the rain and thanking God for happy childhood summertime rainy day memories.