It's an umbrella day.

Oh, life. Some days just take it out of me. Knock me off my feet, scare me blind. Then friends caught me when I fell, steadied my umbrella-holding hand, and ameliorated the storm for me and for everyone I try to keep under my umbrella. Except I'm learning how very much that umbrella isn't mine at all, but God's. I am the steward. Under His eye I learn to turn the umbrella just so to hold out the worst of the storm. Deep inside, where my breath is rapid and my heart beats fast and the interior liquid motion is found, exists a well of gratitude, deep and still, for those surprisingly steady influencers who stand by to lift and watch and hold me and my umbrella.


Grateful, too, for the gentle voice of the Holy Ghost in reassuring me. Grateful for the healing and peace that is restored thereby. I remember something I read once, a lesson taught President Henry B. Eyring by his father, who was dying of cancer. Of his father, he wrote, 

One night when I was not with him and the pain seemed more than he could bear, he somehow got out of bed and on his knees beside it--I know not how. He pled with God to know why he was suffering so. And the next morning he said, with quiet firmness, "I know why now. God needs brave sons."

I know too, God needs brave sons and strong daughters and strong sons and brave daughters. He needs children who will hold out an umbrella and who will be willing to get caught in the storm by doing so. And if that's the errand He needs run, I'll run it. I'm just unspeakably relieved that I don't run it alone.