There’s a mist that’s settled in over the ranch this morning, a lingering reminder of the rain we just experienced the past few days, at long last.

It was just what we needed, we all agreed. Over 2 inches in a few days and it didn’t fix everything — not the hay crop, not the world news, not the fact that my house hasn’t been clean since November 2015 — but it put us back in a much needed frame of mind:

“Patience often gets rewarded.”

“Well, there’s no sense worrying.”

“We’re going to be OK,” and things of that nature.

We’re going to be OK. It’s a mantra I told myself as I pulled my car out of the driveway of that old country church last Sunday. I hadn’t been to church in well over a year, for lots of reasons, some of them valid, some of them excuses, not many of them out of the ordinary.

It was my turn to serve the “lunch” after the service. (“Lunch” in Lutheran means coffee on and something nice to eat so we can all visit in the basement for a while.) There once was a time in my life where I would have felt intimidated at the thought that I was expected to actually “bake” something edible in time for 9 a.m. service, but I just turned 38 and last year I had my chest cut open and lived to complain about it, so I was fine with buying orange juice and bakery coffeecake on my way home from school shopping for two daughters I never thought I’d have who start kindergarten and preschool in a few short days and calling it good.

I left those children sleeping that morning while I headed down the road alone in the rain, on the quiet, now sorta muddy back roads to that tiny church that was still there waiting for me with a small congregation of neighbors and a drafty basement with steep steps that smells like old things and has drawers that stick, a cabinet full of vintage coffee cups, three large percolators and silverware I could not locate to save my God-fearing soul…

“I suppose if I made it here more often… but here I am anyway. I’m here today…”

The silverware search, coupled with a short-and-sweet sermon (remember: Lutheran), made me miss the service entirely — but not this, I did not miss this:

I did not miss the fact that someone was there before me to make sure the space was warm enough and everything was working properly. Or the fact that he checked to make sure I had everything I needed, and also asked if I needed help. And so did she. And so did she. And then she helped with dishes and he took the garbage out and I did not miss that these are those kind of people you try to pull to mind when it all seems a bit overwhelming out there.

I didn’t miss the conversation I had with her about canning chickens and the fact that she always mentions my grandma every time we talk and I love her for it.

I did not miss the words of gratitude for the spread I served and the assumptions that it was homemade (oh, you must have been working so hard!) before my bakery confession.

I did not miss how everyone who was able in that small congregation that morning grabbed an armful of that spread to take it up those steep old steps to be served in the small sanctuary so that our neighbor who couldn’t get down those steps could enjoy it over a visit, too. It was raining after all. There was nothing better to do. I did not miss that.

And at another time I might have worried over judgment that I didn’t bring the kids, or that I hadn’t been there in so long, maybe I shouldn’t be now. And there have been plenty other times I have run out the door sweating, hollering that we’re running late, putting my makeup on in the car while he drove. But not that day.

Because I had store-bought coffeecake, orange juice, a bag of bagels, it was raining and it was just what we needed, and there’s no sense worrying, and we’re going to be OK, and things of that nature…