Atmospheric Rivers

I heard it raining in the night, but it wasn’t actually raining when I drew the curtains back this morning.  “Goodness,” I thought, “when did that last happen?”  Well, technically, I suppose, it was yesterday because it wasn’t raining then either.  It was snowing.  But although it feels like months since we had a dry day, I know it wasn’t really so long ago.  Lest you fear that life in the Yorkshire Dales has become a tedious round of unrelieved gloom, let me assure you that the paths may all be streams, and the roads awash, but the river hasn’t quite burst its banks.  And, in a pot outside my kitchen door, the daffodils are glowing bravely!

We are, apparently, experiencing a weather system known as an ‘atmospheric river’.  Its official definition is ‘a long, narrow and transient corridor of strong horizontal water vapour transport’.  Or, to put it another way, it’s a huge water vapour flow, extending up from the ground for about 4 miles, and moving, on average, double the flow of water carried by the Amazon.  No wonder everywhere is so wet!

It’s rather a nice name, I think. Though if you are stranded somewhere by floods, I don’t suppose the name makes any difference.  You would be wondering if your call for help had got through to the right place, when your turn would come, whether rescue would arrive in time, whether anyone would be able to help even when they did arrive…

Sometimes ‘atmospheric rivers’ threaten to engulf us as we walk through life.  But, as God’s children, we know – as one of the Puritans put it – that all God’s providences come to us through Christ’s fingers.  Nor do we need to wonder whether our cries for help have been heard or will be answered in time.  In the words of Oswald Allen:

O all-embracing mercy!

O ever-open door!

What should we do without Thee

When heart and eye run o’er?

When all things seem against us,

To drive us to despair,

We know one gate is open,

One ear will hear our prayer.

I will lift up my eyes to the hills –

From whence comes my help?

My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

He will not allow your foot to be moved;

He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, He who keeps Israel

Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

Nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;

He shall preserve your soul.

The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in

From this time forth, and even for evermore.

Psalm 121