A story of James, the rain, and the prayer

Each Thursday, we take James to his craft session at the nearby community centre. It is one of the few regular, scheduled, things that we can get James to, and even then he does the craft activity in the car.

But even though it is an indoor (or in-car) activity, it is still highly weather dependent.

The weather needs to be ‘Goldilocks’ weather… not too hot, not too windy, not wet at all! If the weather isn’t ‘just right’, then James really struggles to transition from home to the car, and massively struggles to transition back from the car to the house when we get back home later in the day.

So, today, we took a massive risk. It was raining lightly when it was time to go to the craft class, but we went for it anyway.

James only realised that it was raining when he got outside, and I quickly shut the front door so he had to dash for the car anyway.

We knew it would be worth it as he loves going out to the craft class and the rest of our afternoon out. He quickly settled in the car and was fine. I, however, was still worried.

We had about four hours of activities ahead of us, but the forecast said the rain was set for the rest of the day.

It’s one thing hurrying James from the front door to the car, but an entirely different one to get him to leave a dry, warm, car to dash through the rain to the house (or anywhere else!)

It once took 1½ hours to get him out of the car and into school, while I stood getting soaked holding a brolly to shelter him from the rain.

I had visions that today we might be having tea in the car, a sleepover in the car… help!

Realising that humanly, this could be really hard, I sought higher help; I prayed! “Lord, you know this is looking really difficult, please when we get home help James to transition quickly from the car to the house. In human terms, this is unlikely, but to you nothing is impossible.”

James enjoyed his time doing his craft activity in the car at the community centre, but then we had the rest of our trip out in the rain, culminating in coming back home.

We drove on… my worries remained… What would happen? Had God heard my prayer? Would he answer in the way that I hoped?

Home got nearer, my anxiety increased. As we were pulling onto the drive the rain was getting stronger. We quickly unloaded the car, and then it was finally time to get James out of the car… I prayed again!

James noticed the rain straight away, it dripped on his leg as the car door was opened. He wiped it away and shrank back into the car. He noticed the rain on the inside of the open car door and wiped it away too.

He showed no sign of being willing to come out of the car and into the house. Where was God? Had he heard my prayer and ignored it?

I got a brolly, I did everything I could to coax James out, I did everything in my power to encourage him to come with me… nothing worked. My power was not enough.

Then I noticed that the rain had suddenly stopped. James noticed it too. A leg emerged from the car, followed by another. He shuffled forward.

I wanted to rush in and start encouraging him again, but felt a sense of ‘Stop. Wait.’ I stopped, I waited, and James hesitantly stood up and headed for the house.

Almost as soon as we got through the door, the rain started again. My power had not been enough, and in this case was not needed. God’s power was more than sufficient.

He had answered my prayer and used it to teach me something too; it’s not all about me, what I can do, sometimes it’s about standing back and watching, amazed, at what God does, and giving thanks to him. There’s a lesson in that for us all!

Mark Arnold, Director of Additional Needs Ministry at Urban Saints. Arnold blogs at The Additional Needs Blogfather. This article was re-published with permission.