Rain and Growth

I woke up this morning feeling a little melancholy. Sometimes the rain feels heavy to me. It’s not sadness exactly. More like a heaviness that stirs something deep inside—a softness, a longing, a truth we usually keep hidden under sunny skies.

In a city that doesn't receive a lot of rain, I sometimes love rainy days; they make us slow down. 

This morning, as the rain traced delicate paths down the windows, I felt that familiar, slow breath of melancholy move through me. Not unwelcome, just… present. The kind of feeling that doesn’t demand anything from you but honesty.

And then I remembered a line from the song "Only When It Rains" by Astrid S and Frank Walker.

“But I’ve been told that it will get better when it rains.
The flowers, they won’t grow with only the good and sunny days.
'Cause it’s only when it rains that we grow.”

I think that’s what the ache is about—not despair, but remembering. Remembering that growth and grief are often tangled. That beauty and struggle hold hands. That the days we’d rather fast-forward through are the ones quietly growing something within us.

It’s a hard truth to hold.
We need the rain.

We need the seasons when we feel uprooted, uncertain, undone. Not because suffering is noble—but because being human is tender work. Because the soul, like the soil, needs softening sometimes.

And so the rain falls. On the pavement. On the petals. On us.

And even if we don’t see it right away, something begins to shift. Maybe not upward. Not yet. Maybe the change starts underground—roots reaching deeper, steadier, stronger.

Because it’s only when it rains that we grow.
And while I might long for blue skies, I’m learning not to resent the clouds.
They are part of the story, too.

So I’ll let the rain fall.
Let it wash away what no longer serves.
Let it sink deep into the places still becoming.

Because something holy is happening here.
Quietly.
Softly.
In the rain.

And then—when the skies finally clear, when we step outside after the storm or the sadness or the long, dragging winter—there it is.

Green.

That impossible, radiant green. The kind that almost hurts your eyes because it means something survived. Something came back. Something found a way to begin again.

And in that moment, standing in the light and breathing in the scent of damp earth and new life, we remember:

The rain was never the end of the story.
It was the beginning of something beautiful.