It rains nearly every day in this part of Scotland. On the few days it doesn’t rain, it usually rains for at least part of every day. Dunoon averages nearly 70 inches of rain a year. In January this year, Dunoon saw a mere 37 hours of sun.

My heart is in the desert Southwest in the U.S. where rainfall averages between 12 and 13 inches annually with up to 320 days of sunshine. Yet, I have learned from inclement weather.

Moss blooms. Well, okay. According to the experts—it doesn’t bloom. It reproduces through spores. But it puts up shoots that look like blooms. I love to bend down and study moss intently when it “blooms.” I imagine a world invisible to us, peopled by tiny organisms that go about everyday life on their patch of moss tending the blooms that are like trees to them, building a secret life under our very eyes, a life that is impossible for us to see.

Because it is so wet here, moss grows on everything. I was amazed when we visited Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. Moss even grows on the wire fence around the castle.

When I had a hip replacement that became infected and was in the hospital for three months, I returned home to find our car encased in moss because it hadn’t been driven while I was gone.

Moss has also taught me that my elementary teachers were not infallible. They assured us that we could never get lost in the woods because moss grows on the north side of trees and we would always know which way was north. False. Wrong. It is so wet here in Scotland that moss grows all the way around tree trunks.

Inclement weather has taught me to preserve. With cold wind blowing blinding rainfall into my face and through every chink in my raingear—I don’t want to go on a walk. I don’t want to go outside the door of our little snug house. Yet, a dog needs a walk. Our dog doesn’t even have the benefit of a yard or garden. We have a two-foot strip of gravel around our house. So, out into the punishing, thrashing rain. It’s not comfortable, but it’s profitable because it strengthens me.

Inclement times in our lives are the same. We don’t enjoy them, but they grow us. They strengthen us.

“If indeed we suffer with Jesus, we may also be glorified together.” Romans 8:17.

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