Sundried

*March 2026* 

Dragonflies sit in the sun in the morning. The morning dew wets their wings and keeps them from flying. So in the morning, they sit till the sun has warmed and dried their wings, and now so do I.

In my current job, I’m constantly moving. But what my job provides in physical activity, it lacks in fresh air and sunshine. So on a free day, between errands and obligations, I wander into the great outdoors and find some small patch of grass and a sunbeam. A few days ago, I was having such a morning, sitting on a tiny dock at a local park, warming my bones like a dragonfly.  

When I sit in the sun, I feel like the character Ransom in C.S.Lewis’s Sci-Fi novel Out of the Silent Planet. The main character, Ransom, takes a reluctant trip through space from Earth to Mars.  While on the spaceship, he describes the unfiltered rays of the sun as life-giving; they make him feel strong and refreshed in mind and body.

“There, totally immersed in a bath of pure ethereal colour…stretched his full length and with eyes half closed in the strange chariot that bore them –  he felt his body and mind daily rubbed and scoured and filled with new vitality.”

As I sit, closing my eyes to the warm and bright, I like to think about this scrawny man in the spaceship and hope the yellow light is doing the same for me.

It’s a weepy morning, but in truth, it has been a weepy season. Over the last 10 months, God has asked us to trust him blindly in many areas, but especially with our finances. I say asked us to trust him in the same way a parent asks a child to trust them after they have tossed them in the air. The kind of trust you have to have when falling flat on your face feels like a real option.

Husband getting laid off from his job of twenty years – “Up you go!” House flooding a month later – “Upsy Daisy” – Health insurance costing more than imagined “You’re a bird, Weeee!”

Last week, we had another toss, and this morning I am mid-air, and I can’t see His hands. I find I am too wet to fly, so I sit and let the sun dry my tears.

I didn’t want to go home. When I thought about it, I called it a house full of tears, because in these months, I have often been on my knees, crying hard. Crying, praying, grieving, and throwing away wet items. 

But “house of tears,” besides being overly dramatic, is also an unfair statement. If that house is a house of tears, then it is also a house of praise – a house of prayers answered. If John losing his job was like being tossed up in the air, then John finding a job right before his severance ran out was the soft landing. If it’s the house that was sadly flooded, then it is also the house that was beautifully renovated with help from the insurance company. It is a house where we called a realtor, thinking we’d have to sell before the holidays; then it is also the house where John received a job offer that same afternoon, and I had a job by the week’s end. It’s the house where, on Christmas morning, we came down the stairs we still owned, walked across newly renovated floors, sipped coffee, and opened presents we didn’t think we could afford only a month before. 

In between the answers to prayers, there have been so many acts of kindness. Friends and family who have been generous not only with their finances but also with their time and encouragement. Old friends sending grocery money out of the blue. My parents providing us with a place to live during the chaos of the flood. Sweet family members, some coming from out of state to help us pack up our house, throw away the things we lost in the flood, then help us unpack and organize afresh once the house was dry. 

I cannot list all the people who took care of us. Extras given here and there. Needs met and little luxuries gifted. And through it all, I tried to remember that these believers are the hands and feet of Christ.  Remembering to see his outstretched arms in every act. Even when we could not see his hands, we could feel his embrace. It seems the Son has been drying my tears all along. 

In this time of crisis and faith, there are certain verses I have held on to. Verses like, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  Exodus 14:14. I also like Hebrews 12:2, which talks about God being the “author and finisher” of our faith. Faith is not something I need to muster up, but something the Lord plants in my heart.  He is the provider of my faith. I need only to ask and trust.

Then there is the verse in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that speaks of God’s power being made perfect in our weakness, which was convenient since I have felt so very weak. He held me together with strength I knew I didn’t have.

It’s odd, but even before our house flooded, I kept meditating on the verses in Isaiah 43.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

Isaiah 43:2a

Finally, the verse that ends the beautiful Psalm 27 says, “Wait on the Lord. He will strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord,” reminding me once again of that space man gaining strength by just sitting in the sun. There is comfort to be found when being flung from earth to the great beyond if I just take time to sit with the Son. 

I get up from my sunny spot at the park and look over the dock into the water just as a giant dragonfly swirls past. He has decided it’s time to move forward, and so do I. By the time I reach the car, I receive a message that there might be a solution to this most recent financial crisis.  We are not caught yet, but I can see his hands.*

*By the time I finished editing this, we are well and truly caught. Not only did He solve that most recent financial predicament, but He continues to provide in ways we could not imagine.*