This is what hope and encouragement from the Lord do: they fall like rain on those who feel it is useless and too late and all over. And so the scent of rain comes to those who are dead, dry, dying – a mere stump, a gnarled fist of brittle roots.

So it comes to Hannah, dead in the womb, dead in heart, dead in her hope. So it comes to all of us who fear we’ve been overlooked, undone, and left to decay.

The scent of rain can come in the unlikeliest times and from the unlikeliest people.