Cloudy Thoughts

I flew into the Dallas/ Fort Worth Airport. It was July, in the middle of one of the worst heat waves of the season. And it was unusually dry... The beautiful rolling hills were parched yellow. The trees all appeared tailored with no stragglers at the base. As we were driving out of town,... I mentally wondered what part of this foreign landscape would seem familiar to me. I wanted the rolling hills to be like those of Watsonville, Steinbeck Mountains-- I always thought they looked like sleeping dragons. But, they weren't those kind. I looked up into the sky. Same blue sky. Thank heaven, that the world round, the sky has been the same to me. The cloud's shape has always been familiar, even though, thanks to my aviation weather training, I know the names of them and why they are formed; my thinking about them doesn't hold the same magic as hearing Lindsey talk about clouds in his technical dream voice. I was looking at the sky flipping through thoughts of different kinds of clouds and what they mean to different people.

The Lord was in the Cloud

"an house shall be built unto the Lord, and a cloud shall rest upon it, which cloud shall be glory of the Lord, which shall fill the house." (Doctrine and Covenants 84:5)

The clouds: a symbol of God

"[Moses] the cloudy pillar descended , and stood at the door... and the Lord talked with Moses.(Exodus 33:9)

The soft fluffy clouds that go unnoticed as we go about our daily duty.

"Then the cloud covered the tent... and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." 40:34)

The threatening dark clouds that thunder and lightning.

"... for they have heard that thou Lord art among this people, that thou art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud..."(Numbers 14:14)

The clouds that linger on the horizon. The clouds that bring rain.

"And it came to pass that when Jesus had toughed them all, there came a cloud and overshadowed the multitude that they could not see Jesus." (3 Nephi 18:38- Book of Mormon: when Jesus came to the American continent).

The sunset that paints all the clouds brilliant shades of the rainbow.

Clouds that bring rain, literally living water.

I am sure that as I have been in life's turmoil and shacking my fists at the Heavens, "Why me? Why this? Why not my way?" That I have not stopped to contemplate what kind of clouds are hovering over head. I am sure that the words to the song, "Sometimes He let's it Rain" have not softened how I feel about the situation. I am sure that as anxious of a parent as I am, that God knows what "chores" what turmoil, what classes in Character that are best for me. I am grateful for gentle showers, for foggy days, for summer thunder and lightening shows and even for the wispy clouds that fan the sky scape and make ripples like waves. I very much like the thought that God is in the clouds. It makes me feel more found and less lost.