The Big Epiphany

Today on the way to pick my kids up from school I had an epiphany. I, Like many of you I am sure, have most of my Epiphany's in the car when it is finally quiet. But today I was actually listening to the song 'Pennies from Heaven' by Rosemary Clooney. I was thinking about how life can be such a fickle friend wonderful one day and bitterly difficult the next. Then the song Pennies From Heaven came on. I have heard that song a million times before but this time the words seemed to be speaking right to me like a good friend with some much needed advice.

Don't you know each Cloud contains pennies from heaven
If you want the things you love you must have showers.
So every time you hear it thunder don't run under a tree
there will be pennies from heaven for you and me.

And as the song was playing I drove past an older woman standing on her front porch in her night dress her hair a mess.She looked so frail, maybe recovering from an illness, with her mail in one hand her newspaper under her other arm her eyes closed, her face turned up to the sun letting the warmth soak her skin. She took a deep breath, and then she smiled and in that moment it hit me. She had to be more than twice my age and in her time on this earth so far she surely had faced many losses, sorrows and heartbreaks as well as many joys, memories and blessings. Many more than I have had. And yet there she stood smiling, basking in the last of the summer sun before the season changes and grows colder. I felt the feeling wash over me just as the sun washed over her that this is it, the warmth of the sun, the happy sounds of children laughing, finding a post card in the mail, the smell of fresh cut grass, a good book. those are the life preservers sent down from our Father in Heaven, it is the simple things that prick your heart with joy that keep us from drowning with sorrow. Every storm and every trial, bring us to a point that growth is possible and growth brings joy. and joy stays with you forever. Storms are inevitable in this life but we need to turn our faces to the sun and allow that to buoy us.

Every time it rains it rains pennies from heaven.