What You Think Is Rain, Is Actually A Nudge Into A Better Direction

The third Holy Sip dinner in Jamaica was a success. It was even more amazing than I could have hoped for and i know it’s because I stayed calm as it started to pour one hour before the dinner started. Yes, that’s correct…I was creating and hosting an outdoor dinner and it was pouring.

Ok, so the rain wasn’t a huge surprise. It rains just about every day in Portland, but normally it’s a quick 10-minute rain in the morning and then the sun comes back shining like nothing ever happened. This isn’t what was happening here.

As I stood and watched the rain soak the tables (50 cinder blocks and plywood) that I’d set up on the lawn, I sent up a quick prayer: “Hey God, I already know that this dinner is going to be amazing because we’ve already talked about it, so let me know what you would like me to do here.”

At the same time, everyone was looking to me to give some direction, but I had nothing. How about moving it inside they said. That didn’t feel like the right answer.

A few minutes later, the rain stopped and I decided that my original plan of doing it on the lawn could work., I believed that since the rain stopped, the lawn could dry in time.

Ten minutes later it started to rain again. Worry and frustration tried to settle in, but I stayed calm and remembered that it would all work out exactly as it should.

After the second rainfall, I decided to push the dinner back by an hour (the benefit of everyone traveling to another country for a dinner party is that they’re forgiving about a scenario like this) and set up on the patio area since that would easily dry.

As the rain tapered off, we moved all 50 cinder blocks and five plywood pieces 800 feet to the new location. As everything was being set up, I realized that this was the perfect location for this dinner for so many reasons and I couldn’t figure out why I’d never considered putting it there before. All five tables fit perfectly, the lights strung in the exact right way, the tiki torches were the right amount for the border, the trees shielded the table and added to the ambience, the bluetooth speakers were now at the right distance and the servers had a much shorter walk since we were right next to the kitchen. It was perfect.

After everything was set up another cloud drifted in the area. One of the staff was concerned and said that it looked like it might rain again. I told him that it wouldn’t rain for the rest of the night. I was 100% certain about it as I said it. I knew that the point of the rain was to get me to show me a better plan.

The rest of the night was completely smooth and it turned out to be the best dinner that I’ve ever created.