Crying In The Rain

"Why are you all wet?" the woman asked.

"I was outside, in the rain," the girl replied.

"Why were you out in the rain?" the woman inquired.

"I was hiding," the girl answers.

"Hiding from what?" the woman questioned.

*Pause*

“Hiding from what?” she asked again.

“Everything,” the girl finally replied.

“How does standing in the rain hide you from everything?” the woman asked, confused now.

“It hides me from what I don’t want anyone to see,” the girl said.

“So you’re not hiding yourself? You’re hiding something else?” the woman questioned, baffled now.

“Have you ever stood in the rain?” the girl asked, ignoring the woman’s question.

“Not for no reason.” The woman replied.

“Oh, but I had a reason.” the girl continued on mysteriously.

“Please, just tell me what you were doing in the rain!” The woman was dying of curiosity.

“I was hiding,” the girl said again.

“Hiding what?” the woman stated.

“My tears,” the girl said solemnly.

“Your…tears? I thought you said you were hiding from everything?” the woman asked.

“I was,” the girl replied.

*Another Pause; the woman stood there silent now, not understanding*

“So you’ve never stood in the rain? You’ve never looked at the skies as the rain poured down? You never cried along with the heavens? When you’re crying in the rain, no one can see you, you know. Your tears get all mixed up with heaven’s tears,” the girl said. “When you cry in the rain, the only one who sees your pain is God. And God is good. He doesn’t question why your heart keeps breaking. He doesn’t ask an endless set of questions, just to ignore your final answer. Crying in the rain is the only way to escape the pain that continues to dig deep into your heart; the pain that burrows so far down, it’s impossible to get it out. When you cry in the rain, everything is good…for awhile anyway…until God moves on to the next person who needs Him.”

The woman was speechless, never before had she heard such maturity from one so young. Her 9-year-old daughter was hurting, and she never even noticed. The woman yearned to run to her little girl and hug her; keep hugging her and never let her go.

But she thought about what her daughter said.

And she realized that a hug would do no good. Because, ultimately, the woman would do exactly as her daughter said. She would keep asking endless questions to find out the problem, but in the end she wouldn’t be able to do anything to help. So when all was said and done, she would have to ignore it.

It killed the woman to realize this. So she looked at her daughter with sad eyes.

“I love you,” the women said to her daughter.

And she walked outside, into the rain, and started crying.