Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Remember singing that song when you were small with your nose pressed against a window watching for the rain to stop so you could get back to playing outside?

Well, here I am singing the same tune. It’s been raining for five days straight! The only change has been the interruption of an early snowfall along with it.  Really, I’m ready for it to be done! 

Do you ever feel like the rain clouds of life just hover over you?  What do you do? Do you find your favorite galoshes and get back out there or do you just sit and wish the rain would stop?

In the summer farmers pray for rain, and in the fall, they pray it stops.  For farmers, rain can be the thing that makes them or the thing that breaks them. However, regardless of the weather, they always stay busy. If it doesn’t rain when they want, in my area, they start irrigators. If it’s a rainy day, or five rainy days like it has been, they do maintenance on equipment, pay bills, talk with dealers about upcoming equipment or input purchases.  No matter what, they try to keep moving forward. Whether you live on a farm or not, we can move forward regardless of our circumstances.

Remember the other line of this song: “come again some other day”?

For farmers, they may want the rain to come again some other day—on a day when the hay isn’t down or the crops aren’t waiting to be harvested. For the rest of us however, whatever the circumstance creating our very own rain cloud, we most likely want it to go away and stay away. Many unpleasant things happen along our journey, from damaged relationships, failed tests, unpaid bills, personal goals not met.  Chances are, just like the rain that will eventually come again, these situations won’t go away or stay away forever. We need to decide how we will respond to them and what we can learn from these situations to be better prepared when the “rain” comes again.  Maybe the line about coming another day is just the writer’s way of procrastinating--- don’t feel like dealing with the rain today, but maybe next week I can handle it. Next week the rain won’t bother me or ruin the plans that I have for today. And that is true --- some days we just need a break from life’s rain clouds. Maybe we find the respite in a shared conversation with a friend or accomplishing another smaller task that has been waiting for our attention.  

Take lessons from a farmer and get busy. Even if things don’t look like they are right, right now, keep doing your best. Find something that you can do in your life to make it better, and do it. You can let the rain get in your way, or you can do what you can to keep moving forward. 

To your success!

Adam Kroll

MN FFA State Treasurer