In July 1973, when I was 17, a drought struck my family’s farm in Burnsville, Minnesota. It began with several days without rain. Normal for summertime. But the hot, dry days stretched into weeks. Our farm was our livelihood. We counted on the profits from the corn crop to get us through the year, and the corn was dying before our eyes.
My father was a man of faith. He prayed before every meal and firmly believed God would look out for our family. Each day, Mom and I would get up, hoping for rain. Each day, Dad would expect it, even though there wasn’t so much as a wisp of a cloud in the harsh blue sky.
Around the one-month mark without rain, Mom, Dad and I sat down to lunch one day and bowed our heads in silent prayer, as usual. Mom and I looked up, ready to eat. But Dad didn’t move. We waited so long that I asked if he’d fallen asleep. “Hold on,” he said. “I’m not done yet.” I looked at his hands, calloused and cracked from years of farm work, his nails permanently stained by dirt. They were clasped together so tightly that his knuckles were white. I’d never seen Dad pray so fervently. I knew it was about the drought.
After lunch, Dad returned to the fields, wandering through the yellowing stalks, doing what he could to try to save the corn, which was only a couple of weeks away from being ripe enough to harvest. He stayed out there while Mom and I had dinner. I finished my chores, wiping the sweat off my brow, desperate for a break from the stifling heat. I opened every window in the house, hoping to coax a cross breeze. The air was stagnant, save an occasional hot, weak puff. I sat in our living room, fanning myself and thinking about Dad, a man at the end of his rope.
I needed something to distract myself. I looked at my wristwatch: 7:55 P.M. I was expecting a call from my older sister, Celeste, who lived on her own. She’d promised to call for an update on the crops after she got home from her church choir rehearsal, which ended at 8:00. Hearing her voice would be a comfort.
Boom!
The noise startled me. The house shook. I jumped up and ran to the window. I stared in disbelief. It was pouring rain! My mom and I ran around the house, closing all the windows. Dad came running in, his shirt soaked, his boots caked with mud, beaming from ear to ear.
“Look!” he said, pointing out the front door. “There’s no rain anywhere but on our farm!” He was right. In the distance, on all sides of our property, the skies were clear. There was a rainstorm only over our crops. Eventually, the rain let up. But not before the corn was saved. Dad said the stalks would be healthy by morning.
Celeste called as promised, and we told her about the miracle rainstorm. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “We finished choir class a few minutes early. The director asked if anyone had a request for a song we could all sing in praise together. I asked if we could sing ‘There Shall Be Showers of Blessing.’”
I knew the song well. “There shall be showers of blessing / Precious reviving again / Over the hills and the valleys / Sound of abundance of rain.”
They were singing right when the rain started. Years later, the events of that day remain my strongest reminder of the power of faith. Dad’s dedicated prayer was followed up with a whole choir, and God answered with showers of blessing.
