SUNSHINE AFTER RAIN

                "I just can't take it any more!  Where did all the flowers go?"  Exasperated by her own flower garden ineptitude, Jena Scarsbury cried out across backyard fence to her neighborette.

                At the end of water hose, Rosie Mai Chi grinned, sprayed prize tulips with streamlettes cool and clear.  "That too bad, Jena," Rosie kidded, "maybe you have better luck with cactus." She giggled.

                "It's not fair!" Jena fired back, "You guru worshipin' Chinese come over here and foreign idol up America, fill our roads with pint sized cars and fill our minds with inferiority.  And what do you get for it?  You get rewarded for it, that's what!  I can't take it anymore!"

                "Jena, Jena, you not know gurus from India, pint sized cars Korean and Japanese the smart ones?"  Smiling, Rosie shook head, turned spray on thirsty bed of posies.

                "See that is exactly what I mean: you people are inscrutable," Jena groaned.

                "You crazy mix-up American, nice try to get my goat, you know husband and I are Christian missionaries to here.  You guys need Jesus.  And you wonder where did flowers go!  You silly." Rosie smiled.

                Suddenly, as if heaven sent, bright sunlight and rain cascaded down... Jena scrambled to shelter neath covered patio.  She turned to search for her favorite neighborette and sparring partner.   Jena hollered loud above the rain on tin, "Who is crazy now?  I am not the one standing in the rain!"

                And there Rosie stood amid the garden, smiling, watching, rhythmically nodding along with the dance of her kindred roses, flowers and ferns as they bent and leaped... neath the weight of sunlit rain... then Rosie breathed his name... "Jesus..."


                In his last words, the man after God's own heart, King David spoke of the coming of Jesus: 2nd Samuel 23:4 Living Bible, "He shall be as the light of morning, a cloudless sunrise, when the tender grass springs forth upon the earth, as sunshine after rain."

Post script: "The Little Miracle":

                In the story after Rosie declared, "You silly," the writing ended with no foreseen way to connect it with the chosen scripture nor the title, "Sunshine After Rain." So I prayed.  Then the thought struck me that perhaps Rosie's accent was a tad too stereotypical.  So I figured why not give her a third generation Chinese from Copenhagen Danish accent.  Like that would work?  But there I went.  I was stuck anyway; so I Google Danish accent, right!  Well there she is, the stereotypical little Danish girl answering questions on how to say phrases in English with a Danish accent.  And so someone types in and she repeats the question in her natural accent, "What do they call it when the rain falls when the sun is shining?" She giggles, pans camera to window and says, "It actually does right now..." And there is the sunlit rain falling in the beautiful garden just outside her window.  And she says, "It is coming a rainbow..."  John 20:15-16...