You Can Bank on It

“There’s a bank in the west,” my husband’s mother, a weather worrier, used to announce ominously, concern furrowing her brow. Not being familiar with the term, when I first heard it I thought she was referring to Wells-Fargo or some frontier financial institution. (Little did I know that some fifty years into the future, “The Bank of the West,” would be imprinted on our checks.)

I thought of that when I found myself saying today as we drove into the grocery parking lot, “Look, there’s a bank in the west.” Sure enough, the looming black clouds in the western sky told us we were in for a rain, at least. Still, we were surprised at the checkout to see that it was a deluge out there! Of course, Howard made it happen, by washing the car earlier! By the time we had sacked our groceries, though, there was only a smattering of random drops plopping here and there like the indignant left-over tears from a child’s tantrum.

I’m sure my mother-in-law had good reason to be storm-skittish, having grown up on the plains of Kansas and living in Oklahoma for most of her married life. Just a few years prior, in 1955, the town had been devastated by a deadly tornado. My mother, however, having been raised in southwest Texas, tended to scoff at storms. She usually just turned over and went back to sleep in bad weather. I was more like her.

The rain returned this afternoon, this time with hail. I called my husband at work, but he didn’t seem concerned about it, and soon it was over, with cooler, gusty winds sweeping away the clouds. It was even nice enough for us to sit in the new backyard swing after supper. My eyes fell upon the two small containers of mossy plants that I had not yet put into the ground. I tucked them between the rocks surrounding our fountain. Before going in, we removed the awning from the swing we had worked so hard to attach yesterday; the wind was about to make it airborne.

Weather storms make us think of the storms of life, which with God’s help we take in stride. I read a quote of Ruth Graham’s that she had borrowed from an old mountain man who helped out with chores while she was raising her kids in the absences of her famous husband: “Make the least of all that goes, the most of all that comes.” In other words, don’t dwell on what you don’t have, but be thankful for what you have. Advice you can take to the bank!