It was pouring outside. The kind of rain that gushes over the tops of rain gutters, in such a hurry to hit the earth that it has no time to flow down the spout. Drains in the nearby parking lot were filled to capacity and some were clogged so that huge puddles formed around parked cars.

A group of people stood under the awning just inside the door of the grocery store while they waited - some patiently, others irritated because nature had messed up their hurried day - waiting for the rain to let up at least enough for them to make a dash to their cars without getting completely soaked in the process. But that didn't look like it would be happening soon. The sky was still dark, and the thick raindrops seemed to be falling with more vigor every minute.

Sean was standing next to the large, glass doors, and he looked up at the sky, mesmerized like he always had been ever since he was a little kid, with the rainfall. As a youngster, he would sit on the back porch of the house and get lost in the sound and sight of, as his mother called it, the heavens washing away the dirt and dust of the world.

Memories of running, splashing so carefree as a child came pouring into his head as a welcome escape from the worries of his day so far. A small tug on his hand brought him from his current daydream, and he looked down at his seven-year-old niece standing next to him, who had a hopeful look on her face.

"Sean, let's run through the rain."

"What?" Sean asked.

"Let's run through the rain!" Courtney repeated, this time with more excitement.

"No, Court," Sean sighed. "We'll wait until it slows down a bit."

Courtney knew when to argue with Sean and when not to, and obediently took the hint from her uncle. For close to a minute she remained quiet, until once again Sean felt another tug on his hand, and when he looked down, he saw the familiar glint in his niece's eyes.

"Sean, let's run through the rain."'

"It's raining too hard," Sean repeated.

"No it's not," Courtney insisted.

Sean sighed, feeling himself getting irritated. "We'll get soaked if we do, Courtney."

Courtney looked up at her uncle, a confused look on her face. "That's not what you said last night."

Sean looked down at his niece. "Last night?" he asked. "When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?"

Courtney lowered her head a little and shifted feet. "I wasn't supposed to hear you 'cause I was supposed to be asleep, but I did," she admitted to her uncle. "When you were talking to gramma about how daddy died. You said, 'If God can get us through this, He can get us through anything.' So why couldn't he get us through the rain?"

The entire group of people stopped in the middle of the grumbles and mumbled complaints and fell into a dead silence. Sean stared at his niece, pausing to think of what to say to her, and noticed the silence that had fallen upon the group. He couldn't hear a thing except for the rain as Courtney looked up at him with her wide, blue eyes, and he thought to himself for a moment.

"Court, you're right," Sean said with a smile, remembering something his mother had told him many times as a youngster. "Let's run through the rain. If God lets us get wet, well maybe we just needed washing."

Then, without hesitation, the two ran out from under the awning and into the rain. With their hands clasped together, smiling and laughing as they darted past the cars and ran through the puddles, they held their shopping bags over their heads in an attempt to keep themselves dry, but the effort was useless. They were soaked.

Sean stood outside the car, the heavy raindrops falling on his already-drenched head, as he watched the few who followed them out from under the awning, screaming and laughing like children all the way to their cars. He smiled, hoping that when they got home, they too would take the time to realize what valuable gifts they had in their lives.

Sure, Clayton's death had been devastating for the entire family, but when Sean looked back on his life at that very moment, as he stood in the rain with his niece, their clothes completely soaked through as they stood hand in hand, he realized that he wouldn't trade where he was for anything. Things happened for a reason, that was something he had believed his entire life, and he was perfectly content knowing that on this particular night, God had planned for the two of them to be running through rain in the middle of the grocery store parking lot, hand in hand.