Back in the early 2000’s, my Dad was the windshield MASTER. Put a squeegee in his hand with some fresh water and detergent, and when he was done, it SPARKLED.

And then he began the RainX phase of service station mastery.

This morning, as I drove to work in the rain, raindrops standing still on my windshield, me holding out as long as I could to NOT use the wipers, I thought about Dad and RainX.

Dad “treated” our family windshields with this special sauce, the RainX cream. He would squeeze a little out of the bottle and then spread it out across the windshield, rubbing it in with a circular motion, until the windshield shone – a turtlewax for the windshield glass. I will never forget the first time he and Mom took me somewhere and it began raining on his RainX’d windshield. It was raining HARD, and the raindrops just skittered and slid away like the surface was ice. Clearly we were in a large thunderstorm and the sound of the heavy rain on the roof of the car made it difficult to have a conversation…but he was not using the wipers.

I was stunned.

And I was sold on RainX, the miracle cream.

When my life was in the middle of falling apart and I was on my own for the first time in my life, I had a small apartment and parked across the street in a public parking lot. One night, there was a small ice/snow storm. I got up the next morning and looked out the 11th floor window to see that it was cold and white and I would need to leave for work a little earlier so I could scrape my windows on the car. I made my way down the elevator, bundled up for the blast of cold air when I hit the outside air. As I walked across the street to the parking lot, I discovered that someone had beat me to it. All my windows were scraped from edge to edge.

Dad.

He has always made sure that I can see clearly.

When life seemed so complicated and messy and difficult to navigate for any of us, Mom would do the figuring and the sorting and the talking and the busy work of dealing. And Dad was Dad. He was quiet and just did what Dad did. He listened, and he worked.

All those years, Dad was an example by the way he lived, not so much by the things he said. He still is that example. He is the RainX to all things complicated and messy. When life is complicated and people aren’t getting along and the world is falling apart, Dad is quiet, listens, and works.

His work these days involves smiling, cleaning up his corner of the block, offering a Delmar joke, and most importantly, spending time in prayer.

His signature response to, “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay, but I’ll get over it.”

RainX for the soul.

I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.” Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove. – James 2:18, The Message