It looks like seven years of prayers for rain have all been processed at once! I can just imagine someone up in the heavens getting through their backlog of Prayer Requests from drought-ridden Australian farmers and frustrated gardeners, and giving all those Requests the official stamp of approval…

Only to set up a huge surge of prayers for the end of rain. It’s almost unbelievable, this steady emptying of the skies, the constant dampness and puddles. Even paper and envelopes are feeling limp, heavy with the moistness in the air, and nothing dries properly. For summer in Melbourne to be green and not yellow is a sight for sore eyes, but our pleasure in that is tempered by knowledge of the calamity up north.

This rain, in the wake of years of prayer for it, does bring to mind the time lag on our personal prayers and dreams and manifestations. So often we have a desire that we nurture with our affirmations and treasure maps and visualisations, and still it doesn’t take form. We feel as if we are waiting and waiting. We wonder what’s wrong with us – don’t we deserve it? what are we doing wrong? why is it taking so long?

I said that this blog would be about my 19 year old son and his tattoo. For some months he’d hinted that he was going to get one, and since it’s his body, I could only hope he chose something inspiring… Then in December he returned from a holiday in Byron Bay with the words, ‘Without pain there is no Spirit’ tattooed on his forearm in Hebrew.

He had wanted the words, ‘no pain, no gain’, and he wanted them in Hebrew (likes the look of the script), and this was the translation that matched that sentiment. It’s a thought-provoking statement.

Without pain and difficulty in our lives, there is no growth in character, in understanding, in wisdom – no real spirit. The person for whom life is just one big series of presents would be self-centred, weak, demanding, and passive, certainly not someone with spirit.

It’s something to keep in mind when rains assail us and our prayers seem to go unanswered…