Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet. –Bob Dylan

I choose life. I choose the adventure that life is. That means I cannot control my outcome. Life has some turns and slides. Sometimes those are wild with big ups and big downs. Sometimes they are not. Life can also be slow and steady plodding and that can make me feel uncomfortable (or cranky) at times. Through it all I choose to feel the rain.

I am alive. I feel. My heart is full even as it is calloused.

Healing rarely comes without pain.

I saved this quote from an article that has little to do with brave living. It’s from a doctor about what he had discovered which turns out to be a pretty amazing scientific discovery:

With every patient I treat, I hear myself echo the same sentiment: I know this hurts. I’m sorry. It will be over soon. In the emergency department, healing rarely comes without pain. It may be the wrenching of a joint back into place, the lancing of an abscess, or the administering of antibiotics through the business end of a large needle. But with the exception of the few who decide at the first flash of my scalpel that perhaps they aren’t that sick, most patients understand: The hurt is temporary, and it has a purpose.

They understand it because we see it everywhere: Sacrifice now produces benefits later. Whether the sacrifice is submission to pain, change, or loss, we believe that “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character” (Rom. 5:3–4) because the truth of it plays out in every theater of our lives. Whether it is in relationships, education, or the gym, we lose something and experience pain to be better off. So when scientists first peered into a cell and saw it destroying its own proteins and organ-like parts (organelles)—structures that it had invested heavily into building—their first question was, “Where is the benefit of this sacrifice?”  Source:  Why Our Body Destroys Itself

Where is the benefit of this sacrifice? When the rain is pouring down into my life? It will be something. I believe that with my whole soul.

Meanwhile put on your rainboots. I will dance in the rain.

Then there is this very Bravester thought:

If we’re going to put ourselves out there and love with our whole hearts, we’re going to experience heartbreak. If we’re going to try new, innovative things, we’re going to fail. If we’re going to risk caring and engaging, we’re going to experience disappointment. It doesn’t matter if our hurt is caused by a painful breakup or we’re struggling with something smaller, like an offhand comment by a colleague or an argument with an in-law. If we can learn how to feel our way through these experiences and own our own stories of struggle, we can write our own brave endings. When we own our stories, we avoid being trapped as characters in stories that someone else is telling. Brene’ Brown, Rising Strong

Did you notice you have to feel your way through these experiences? Not numb them. Not deny them. Not be too busy to feel them. Do not be afraid to lean into the discomfort.

Find your rainboots. Dance in the rain. Feel the rain. Be alive.

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy. Psalm 30:11.

There is getting wet. And then there is dancing in the rain. I choose life.

(photo credit: Noelle Otto)