We Are Tested Every Day

By Peter Bowden

The rain came hard that spring, beating down on the fields until the cotton drowned. Folks cursed the sky, shook their fists at the clouds, and prayed louder than before. The preacher said it was a test. The old men on the porch said it was just weather. But the boy, barefoot in the mud, saw the green shoots that came after—stronger, fewer, stubborn in the wind.

In the weeks that followed, neighbors shared tools and hands. Fences got mended, and so did hearts. People learned the sound of each other's footsteps again. The boy’s mother planted marigolds beside the ruins of the garden, and they bloomed like fire, as if daring the storm to come again. “Sometimes,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, “God doesn’t stop the bad thing. He teaches us how to stand in it.”

Years later, when sorrow came again—quieter this time, like fog instead of thunder—the boy remembered. He stood still. He breathed deep. And he helped someone else carry their weight, not with answers, but with presence. The storms still came, but so did the morning, and both, he’d learned, were gifts.

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