Pennies from Heaven, I love the lyrics of that song — “Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven. Don’t you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven? You’ll find your fortunes fallin’ all over the town. Be sure your umbrella is upside down. Trade them for a package of sunshine and flowers. If you want the things you love, you must have showers. So, when you hear it thunder, don’t run under a tree. There’ll be pennies from heaven for you.” If I had an umbrella I could have caught lots of shiny pennies today. And when the sunshine returns, I’ll trade my pennies for flowers.

Thought about that song while we were having a thunder bunder of a storm this morning. Penelope hid under my bed and I watched the storm’s beauty as it raged through my bamboo forest out my bedroom window. My mother used to call these summer storms electrical storms, the lightning flashes vivid and bright and the thunder booms and rattles the windows and the rains pours heavily down. She would always tell us the tale about a terrible storm when she was a little girl when a lightning bolt rolled in the front door of her grandmother’s house and went under the bed in their front bedroom. Then she’d say the storm winds wrapped a car around a tree like tin foil on the street behind their house. I enjoy a storm occasionally when Mother Nature is breathing heavy and flexing her weather muscles. Don’t want a tornado to come or giant hail to break windows, though.

Ran out on the porch this morning to get my new porch pillows and thought about running over to the old oak to get the squirrel’s peanuts before they were ruined by the rain but a bright lightning bolt made me bolt back in the house. As I ran in I sang the little children’s ditty, “Rain, rain go away. Come back another day.” But I know our gardens are enjoying this delicious rain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.” We can collect our pennies from the beautiful days and wonderful life experiences. But to collect these pennies, we have to weather the dark and dreary life experiences that make us thankful for the sunny days that are on the horizon. We always have God’s promise of a new tomorrow with a wondrous rainbow of hope.

Late afternoon the skies cooperated enough for me to porch perch and ponder. My yard was teeming with songbirds and squirrels. And of course the squirrels ignored the wet peanuts. The handsome red-headed woodpecker came by for a quick snack from the suet basket. I listed all the birds I saw visiting the sunflower feeders — sparrows, doves, cardinals, three downy woodpeckers, a red-headed woodpecker, purple finches, titmice, chickadees, brown-headed cow birds and a towhee. A good day for bird watching.

As the afternoon waned I was watching Mother Nature prepare for her pageant of sunset, dipping her Kolinsky sable brushes in her pink and blue and aqua watercolors. The paint brushes were a gift from Father Sky, the brushes originally commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1866. Mother Nature brushed light strokes of color across the layer of clouds, the color gone as quickly as her brush touched the sky. The pageant of sunset was held behind closed clouds in layers of blue and vanilla.

The sun rolled down the horizon as silver as a ball bearing, gathering speed as she pulled Father Sky by the hand down the pageant runway. They were in a hurry, racing the next storm as it gathered on the horizon. Father Sky was running and reciting Shakespeare, “love, comforteth like sunshine, after rain.” Father Sky kissed the sun goodnight, hastily put on his bright yellow McIntosh, and went to wake the moon and the stars as the thunder and lightning disturbed the twilight before darkness captured the day.

When I think of the storms I’ve weathered in my 68 years on earth I see my sunshine as friends and family that supported when me when I cried and helped me cope with the harsh reality of my daughter’s death and many years later the death of my husband. Their rays of vibrant warm love were a light in my darkest hours and gave me hope of happier days ahead. People who make you laugh and smile, who give you endless support and strength, are your sunshines.

We can all use a little more sunshine in our lives. We all have a little light inside us that can help brighten someone’s darkest days. Sharing the light of God’s love makes our sunshine brighter.

“Don’t let the shadows of yesterday spoil the sunshine of tomorrow. Live for today.” — Nandina Morris