Words: Par­a­phrase of Psalm 23; au­thor un­known.

Music: Ew­ing, , 1853.

Our cup over­flows. Lit­er­al­ly. Our part of the count­ry was des­per­ate­ly dry. Over the past two years, we had a rain de­fi­cit of over 60 cen­ti­meters. In Ju­ly and Au­gust 2003, we got al­most no mea­sur­a­ble pre­cip­i­ta­tion. Tem­per­a­tures were ap­proach­ing 40°C. Far­mers were start­ing the har­vest early in hopes of saving what they could from their sun blast­ed fields. Barge traf­fic was stop­ping due to low ri­ver le­vels. Then we got down on our knees and prayed for rain. Not just for show­ers, but hard, soak­ing, gul­ly wash­ers. Buck­ets of rain. Oceans of rain. Then it began. One morning after getting up, I looked at our rain gauge and couldn’t see the float­ing orange in­di­cat­or ring. It was in­vi­si­ble be­cause the gauge was ab­so­lute­ly full to the brim, over­flow­ing! This had ne­ver hap­pened be­fore, as long as we had lived in our cur­rent home. We got over 15 cen­ti­me­ters in three days, and it was still rain­ing at this writ­ing on August 31, 2003. God is good!