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On the late afternoon streets, everyone hurries along, going about their own business. Who is the person walking in front of you on the rain-drenched sidewalk? He is covered with an umbrella, and all you can see is a dark coat and the shoes striking the puddles. And yet this person is the hero of his own life story. He is the love of someone’s life. And what he can do may change the world. Imagine being him for a moment. And then continue on your own way. ~ Vera Nazarian, The perpetual Calendar of Inspiration 

In the daily grind of worry and strife it is good to occasionally come upon a story to lift the spirit, cleanse the soul, ease the mind, and be inspired. One such story came across my transom the other day and if this doesn’t lift your spirit and get the tears of God flowing through you then I doubt that anything else will.

We (me being plural) have some dust (as in euphemistic tears) in our eyes. Like a LOT of dust. Coming up in a minute or two, meet 5-year-old Ari Schultz who was diagnosed with critical aortic stenosis when he was still in the womb of his mother. The very birth chamber of his life.

But first, a little muse on rain…

“The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.” ~ Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

“It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.” ~ Ernest Hemingway 

“You can dance in the storm. Don’t wait for the rain to be over before you do because it might take too long. You can; you can do it now. Wherever you are, right now, you can start, right now; this very moment.” ~ Israelmore Ayivor 

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“This meant if we didn’t intervene before he was born,” Ari’s parents wrote, “he would have only a two chamber heart. So we did indeed intervene, first at 20 weeks of gestation, setting us on a wild and unexpected path.”

More recently, Ari was living as an inpatient at Boston Children’s Hospital waiting for a heart transplant. On Friday March 3, 2017, after 211 days of waiting, doctors gave Ari’s parents the good news that their son was getting a new heart.

The video was uploaded to YouTube on Monday March 6th., and shows the touching moment when Ari’s parents, Mike and Erica, tell their son he’ll be receiving a new heart. “So I can go home tomorrow?” Ari asks, trying to hold back his own tears. “Not tomorrow, but soon after,” his dad tells him. “And I can have more water?” Ari asks.

More water indeed. Christ on the Cross of Calvary – “I thirst” – only to be handed a sponge of vinegar which he declined. The rainy day tears of God, shed not only for Ari, but also for the family of the donor of the heart who after all, had to accept the loss of their own child’s life to sustain that of someone else. Who can get into the mind of God when he himself brought forth his own son to do the very same thing on the Cross of Calvary? More water indeed, brave little Ari, more water indeed…

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain…

“When you go, if you go, and I should want to die, there’s nothing I’d be saved by more than the time you fell asleep in my arms in a trust so gentle I let the darkening room drink up the evening, till rest, or the new rain lightly roused you awake. I asked if you heard the rain in your dream and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.” ~ Edwin Morgan, New Selected Poems 

“She might have wept then, had not the sky begun to do it for her.” ~ George R.R.Martin, A Storm of Swords 

“The rain started pelting against the window. Bullets looking for a target. He told me that as he stared at nothing his mind was going a million miles a minute, and for a brief moment he thought of ending it. Doing it. Getting it over with. There was nothing more to live for. She was gone. His boys were gone. His life was done. So – let’s finish it.” ~ Dennis G Hurst, Cloud by Day/Fire by Night 

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It rains and rains and rains. But there is a sky above the rain. Nothing can rot the sky. Earth has turned to mud. What of it? The heart of the planet is made of fire, of ardent sun. (from “A Rainy Day”)” ~ Visar Zhiti, The Condemned Apple 

“We stepped carefully, so softly, over thorny plants. The dust had turned to mud, splattering our shoes, socks, and legs. By the time we reached the boat, our clothes were clinging to our flesh and stained with the bloody remains of mosquitoes.” ~ Mia Kirshner, I Live Here 

“God gave the seed, but he wants the fruits back. Pick the seeds up. Plant the best ones. He promised the rain. It will be a bumper harvest!” ~ Israelmore Avivor, The Great Handbook of Quotes

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H/T AMERICAN DIGEST for the animated graphics (which are awesome!) and The Cascades for their enduring hit song from 1962(!)

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Face of Jesus by Richard Hook

Soli Deo Gloria!