Firepower: Falling Rain
Firepower: Falling Rain
Phil Connor
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Author’s Note: This year, I’ll take readers on a journey that explores how our lives are like rivers running through us. Each attribute of these rivers represents an aspect of our lives. So grab a paddle and join me in the Firepower kayak as we embark on a journey to explore the river within you. This month, we’ll explore falling rain.
When rain falls on a river, it doesn’t just slip quietly into the current—it also stirs, nourishes, reshapes, and replenishes. The sky’s offering may seem fleeting, but its impact is broad, deepening the channel, quickening the flow, and renewing an ecosystem that depends on it for vitality. Imagine the rain falling on a river is like the contributions others make to our lives through acts of kindness, wisdom, challenge, or love. Over time, the rain may become indistinguishable from the flow of who we are, yet its impact can be profound and transformative.
Impact of Every Drop
Each raindrop may be small and appear insignificant. Yet collectively, the rain will feed the river and swell its strength. Our relationships operate in the same way. Some people will enter our lives with the force of a thunderstorm: bold, sudden, and impossible to ignore. While others arrive more subtly, as a gentle drizzle that persists with an ever so subtle influence on us until, one day, we notice we’ve changed.
Just as no river can survive on its own without the nourishment of the skies, no person thrives in true isolation. We are each a composite of the many who’ve contributed to our character, dreams, and resilience. Family members, mentors, strangers, adversaries, they all pour something into our current, whether we realize it or not. The speaker and author, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, once said, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” His point is that we can just casually coast through life and never change, or we can choose the people and books in our lives, helping to write our own story. In other words, we choose the rain that falls in our river.
In other words, we choose the rain that falls in our river.
Seasons of Life
There are seasons when the rains come gently and regularly. These are the steady friends, the unwavering support systems, the quiet allies whose belief in us becomes a sustaining force. A parent’s belief in their child’s creative spark, a teacher’s encouraging word, or a leader’s trust in our capabilities all add to the current, impacting both its volume and velocity, urging us forward.
We sometimes credit success to our individual effort, but few victories are solo wins. The moments we felt seen, valued, or reminded of our worth were often the result of others generously offering their presence. Like rain falling into the headwaters, the origin of that support may be far upstream early in our lives, but its effect flows all the way to who we are at this moment.
We sometimes credit success to our individual effort, but few victories are solo wins.
Rain doesn’t always arrive peacefully. Sometimes it lashes sideways in downpours that erode the riverbank and change the terrain. These storms come from conflict, loss, disappointment, or challenge and can often be delivered by those closest to us. And yet, from these tempests come crucial shaping forces.
The colleague who challenged our ideas may have sharpened our thinking. The heartbreak that felt like drowning might have added a new capacity for empathy. Even betrayal, though painful, might lead us to rediscover our boundaries and self-worth. In this way, others contribute not by affirming what we do or say, but by provoking. And like a river responding to a sudden surge, we adapt, deepen, and redirect to emerge stronger and more expansive.
Evaporation and Fleeting Moments
Not every influence in our lives is permanent. When we are young, we believe our friends will be with us forever. Some people are but briefly in our lives, perhaps a coworker who saw our potential before we did, a neighbor who offered comfort during grief, a classmate who broadened our worldview. These individuals, like evaporated rain, may move on, but their effects remain in our current. Their kindness, perspective, or lesson can cycle back through us. Then later, we may pass them on to others. Someone fills us when we are empty; in turn, we pour into someone else downriver.
Someone fills us when we are empty; in turn, we pour into someone else downriver.
With time, a river doesn’t merely carry water, but it carries history. It holds memories of drought and flood, swift rapids and calm pools. So too, we carry the influence of those who walked beside us, lifted us up, or simply reminded us of joyful moments. These contributions aren’t always dramatic. In fact, these instances might blur into the background of our memory, but they can moisten our soul just the same. We can also pay it forward. When we offer compassion, insight, or time to others, we can become part of someone else’s river.
Connected
This may remind us that our lives are rarely, if ever, self-contained. Every person we meet is a potential source of nourishment or redirection. And as we receive, so are we called to give. Life, like the river, flourishes through this interconnected exchange we have with our family, friends, and co-workers. The next time the rain patters gently or roars with intensity, it’s worth pausing to listen. Somewhere, a river rises because of it. Somewhere, someone becomes more of who they were meant to be when someone else, maybe without even knowing, contributes just a drop.
Life is not a solitary journey downstream, but rather an ever-evolving waterway, replenished by love, challenged by storms, and guided by the grace of others—just like falling rain on a river. As we prepare for the storm of the fall burn season, let’s reflect on the quality of water we wish to add to the rivers of the people around us. May your rivers flow pure and with purpose.
Thanks for reading, have a prosperous month ahead.
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Phil Connor
Phil is always working with his team at Ignition Labratory to find new ways to spread the fire. If you found Phil's column impactful, or if you'd like to have him speak at an upcoming event, contact him at phil.connor@live.com.
