Night Whisper

Bang...bang...double bang, bang...the door down the hall pierced the night. My eyes slowly opened to pitch dark as the slamming door called me out of my slumber. Pulling open my mosquito net, lightning rolled across the sky, lighting the whole room for several minutes as it constantly flashed. I reluctantly slipped through the mosquito net, out of bed and sauntered down the hall guided by the light from the storm. Rain was gushing around the whole house, sounding as though we were engulfed in a massive waterfall.

A foot away from the door, something suddenly grabbed my hand. Gasp for breath. Two sharp shrills exploded from my upper lungs and my heart skipped a beat.

"It's me! It's me!" Betsy pleaded. Air filled my lungs again as I sighed. Why do I have to be so dog gone jumpy? She was shutting the door and I turned to head back down the hall to my room.

The sound of the rain beckoned me to the open door as I passed by. I stuck my head out into the darkness and stepped halfway onto the veranda.

"Wow"...

Moments passed by as I took in the magnificence of the storm--of the rolling thunder, flashed of light constantly filling the sky, and the rain. The beginning of the monsoon. It's hard to just call it rain when it's so massive like that. Ain't nothin' like Missouri rain.

The monsoon had only been coming at night the past several weeks. It'd been many months without any rain before the first down pour, and after about five nights of it, it was another week until this one. The heat and humidity had been close to unbearable--although I know it's going to get worse as summer isn't full blown yet.

We're closest to one of the wettest spots on earth, but the rain only comes all at once. We go for long periods without any at all.

As I watched it pour outside, my thoughts shifted to my neighbors, who live in bamboo walled houses with mud floors in the low areas. Were they asleep? Was water pouring through their roofs? Their floors? I though of the villages that flooded last year, the hundreds of people who drowned as their entire villages were swept away into the mighty Brahmaputra River. Were people dying tonight?

Then the power of it all consumed me and my thoughts drifted on to the Psalms:

My soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary,
and beheld your power and your glory...

Psalm 63

Power. Majesty. Moha मोहा--the word used in our language to describe the greatest power. For the Christians and for the Muslims it's used to describe God's power, for the Hindus it's the greatest power. The word consumed my thoughts.

Wow--He amazes me. His moha, how great! So attractive. How could one not be drawn to this power? I wanted it. I wanted to be a part of it.

Then it hit me: I am. That's my God, my Lord, my life. As Jesus put it, "I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" John 14:20. He is in me. That power--that moha surrounding me now--the one I'm watching, hearing, seeing--the one taking lives and giving life (through rain in this case)--that power is in me. I am in Him. I am a part of it.

A nice little romantic night whisper. I smiled and crawled back through my mosquito net into bed.