Rain, rain go away, come back another day!! If you are from the PNW like we are it may take 3 months to get even an inch of rain, or during the winter months a full month to get it 1 inch. But if you are from the Southeast part of the USA you can get an inch of rain in minutes. They clearly invented umbrellas for folks who live in these areas. We used to joke, we are from the PNW. We aren’t sugar and we don’t melt so only tourists use umbrellas there.
So when we are busy working on our Build to Rent projects in Louisiana and our developer says construction has halted because of the rain, it seems rather absurd. When it goes on for the whole winter, we start investigating. What we find out is that it is one of the wettest winters recorded for the area and they got more rain in the winter alone than we get in the whole year.
After finding out this information, we were not surprised when we showed up to the build site to find the retention pond almost completely full, the new sewer treatment plant full of 6 feet of water and mud, and no chance of the streets getting done anytime soon.
They would need a full 10 days with little to no rain and some either sun or wind to dry the ground enough to place the lime in and get the streets and curbs done. So although some suggested we do a rain dance like bugs bunny did, our group opted for something far more powerful. We came together and prayed. The majority of the partners were there and as Christians we knew God controlled it all.
Praise the Lord, he answered our prayers and the dirt dried out, the lime was able to get put down and we are on the schedule to get the streets done. It is amazing to me how a little perspective can go a long way towards having grace with team members and how often we forget it because we are busy focusing on our own filter of the world.
Who would have ever thought California, a state that has been in a drought for over 23 years, would have not only come out of the drought, but experienced record flooding. So when my family has been telling me about all the craziness they are experiencing due to the flooding, it seems absolutely unbelievable. Yet I know they wouldn’t lie about it.
It is always good to remind ourselves that our teammates aren’t out to get us, but rather maybe have a different perspective of the situation. It might even be helpful to hear them out. If we would have pushed our developer to work in all that mud, it could have caused major equipment damage that we would have had to pay for. Sure no one likes delays, but there is a timing to things and if we are patient and hear all sides, we can make the best decisions for our relationships as well as our businesses and personal lives.
Travelling this great country has certainly shown us the need to slow down at times and speed up at others, but to have grace with ourselves and others, God has a plan and He will work it out if we trust him with the process.
