Dancing in the Rain

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:02 pm by Rebecca Frech

Dancing in the Rain 2014-08-22T16:02:41-05:00 Rebecca Frech

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It’s been raining here for three days straight. The children have spent every day playing outside in the rain and splashing in puddles. They’ve spent hours outside, but only if they’re in the front yard.

I keep sending them out back where there are no cars and I don’t have to watch them. There’s a fence to keep them safe and not much trouble for them to get into. Which is why they hate it. My 9-year-old calls it “playing in a box.” I guess I can see that. It doesn’t matter how many toys and playthings we put back there, they’re still caged up.

But if they’re allowed the freedom of the front yard with its seemingly limitless space to run and play all up and down the street, they are content to play all day. Drenched to the very bone and blissfully happy.

There’s something in them that yearns for that wide open space kind of freedom. Once they can go anywhere, they are happy to stay nearby, but if I try to fence them in they only want to run away.

Which has me thinking this evening about human nature and Free Will while I’m watching my beloved mud covered children shriek in the pond forming at the end of our driveway. What if Free Will is not about setting us free so much as it is about keeping us near? What if God knew that children who are given limitless vistas return again and again to the places where they are loved and belong? What if he knew that fencing us in would only make us try to run away and see what else was out there? What if we were created free and beloved by a Father who likes to sit on the porch and smile as we dance in the rain? How wonderful that would be. How blessedly amazing it is.

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