clear skies

If you're subscribed to The Tuesday Letters, these words will be familiar to you, but this is one of the most special pieces that I've written this year, and I wanted it to live here on the blog, too. Amidst a year of so much heaviness, this is one of my dearest memories, one that I've hung on to when the world has felt completely upside down. I hope that it can mean something to you, too. 

June 23, 2020 

This week took "wishing you clear skies" to a whole new level. 

The past month has been filled with preparations for a belated graduation for the theatre group that I work for - a graduation ceremony for my sister and a handful of our dearest friends, who would be graduating alongside her. On any other year, the ceremony would have taken place mid-May, but due to the COVID crisis, it had to be pushed out.

Still, there were quite a few safety measures that needed to be put in place, the biggest of which was the venue. Our graduations are traditionally held in a theater, but theater buildings are still closed in our area, and we all felt that having an indoor event probably wasn't the wisest, anyways. After quite a bit of searching, we found a beautiful outdoor wedding venue that would work for what we needed.

Now, however, we had a new problem on our hands. We were trying to host an outdoor event. In June. In the South. And no, I'm not just talking about the heat.

Summertime around here is notorious for having the most unpredictable weather imaginable. The temperature fluctuates like you wouldn't believe, but possibly the most difficult unpredictability in it all is the rain. There's absolutely no telling when it's going to come and how long it's going to stick around.

By the week of graduation, my phone's immediately suggested website was the weather channel, which I found myself refreshing religiously, becoming more and more horrified by the day.

Thursday's forecast kept up a consistent 80% chance of thunderstorms, the lightning bolt across my screen seeming more and more smug with every refresh. We needed a miracle - and at this point, a miracle was the last thing that I felt we could hope for.

Because if we're being honest, life lately hasn't felt very miraculous. I think we've all been praying for miracles over the last few months, and I don't know about you, but my cynicism has taken over more often than not as we've watched loss after loss take place. By nature I always so badly want to hope for the happy ending, but when it comes down to it, I tend to expect the worst, especially these days.

So, of course it would rain Thursday. Of course. The irony would just be too strong - finally being able to be together only to get rained out. We were all praying, and I knew that there was always room for God to keep us dry, but I really didn't want to expect it. Let me rephrase that - I wanted to expect Him to show up, but I didn't feel as though I could.

Setting up that day, dark clouds rolled overhead. I kept nervously refreshing the forecast, glancing up at the sky as we set out the white plastic chairs. We'd stuffed towels in the trunk in case it rained and then stopped prior to the ceremony, to dry off all of the chairs. Personally, I wondered if, once it started, it would ever stop.

The hours leading up to the ceremony were hectic - trying to set up a full tech booth outdoors, running through the program for the first time together, making sure that the seats were labeled and hair was curled and everything was ready to go. It was a frenzy, and it was only when I was finally seated, mere seconds before the graduates walked, that I looked up.

The sky was the most beautiful, beautiful blue.

When I tell you that the weather that night couldn't have been more perfect - wow. It wasn't windy or horribly hot, and, by the grace of God, it didn't rain. It wasn't until hours after the ceremony, as we sat together on blankets in a friend's driveway long past midnight that people started piping in.

"It was pouring the entire drive over", said a friend who had come from over an hour away. "I almost called you because it was such a bad storm. I didn't know what y'all were going to do."

My mom spoke up then, saying that a friend coming from the opposite direction had told her the exact same thing. Apparently, it had been raining on all sides of the venue. A few people even swore that they'd seen raindrops bounce on the little pond directly behind where the graduates were standing during the ceremony. And yet, for us, the night couldn't have been more perfect.

Writing this now, curled up under a blanket on Monday afternoon, I can't help but smile as I glance out the window at the darkening sky. It looks like we're in for yet another stormy afternoon - but on Thursday, we saw a miracle. And in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't the biggest thing, was it? We're still in a pandemic. There's still upheaval all around us. And yet, for an evening, all of that didn't feel quite so big, because for that evening, we had clear skies. And there was music and dancing and for a few hours, we got to celebrate the people dearest to us in the way that we always have. Our graduations are probably the loudest, quirkiest, most sentimental graduation ceremonies that you'll ever attend, and we cherish them. So to have that - to not lose that - was pure joy.

The world may still feel like a mess, but let me at least remind you that the little miracles are still here. Maybe everything isn't resolving as quickly as we'd like - but our timetable isn't His, thank heavens. And in it all He's still here and still moving, even in the things that would be insignificant to anyone but us.

Don't be afraid to expect good things from God. That's the exact opposite of how we should be thinking. We can't give up on hope just because things aren't playing out the way we thought they would.

Coming off of a really horrible May, my sole prayer was simply for June to be better. "Just let it be better," I prayed. As I flipped through my Bible those first few days, I landed on a verse that I didn't remember ever reading before, though I know I had to have - Psalm 27:13.

"I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." 

I don't memorize Scripture as much as I should, but for once, I didn't even have to try. Those words have been branded onto my brain since the day that I read them, my battle cry for June and beyond. We will see His goodness here on earth - even when we least expect it.

Keep your head up, friends. Cheering you on.

mid-ceremony, I sent this to my dear friend, Hailey, who'd been praying for us all day.
you know I love a good sky photo, but this might just be my new favorite.

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