If you live in the Valley, you watched the sky last week. The rain came in the first days of October, and for a few mornings the air smelled different.

It helped. The National Weather Service office in Brownsville now says that early-October rain improved the long drought, and that severe to extreme dry conditions remain in some parts of the Valley. One good week can't undo a dry year.

Some of you feel that in your work. You farm, ranch, run a nursery or cut grass for a living, and you've been counting on rain the way other people count on a paycheck. Others feel it somewhere quieter: a long, dry stretch on the inside that the weather report can't see.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote about a dry year too:

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:7-8, ESV)

The tree in that picture still lives through the drought. What keeps it green is where its roots go.

So today, let's pray for this place together.

A prayer for the Valley

Lord, thank You for the rain You already sent. Send more, the kind that soaks in. Strengthen the farmers, growers and ranchers who have carried this dry year, and provide for the families stretching every dollar and every gallon. And for anyone reading this in their own dry season, let their roots find You. Amen.

Say it with me: I am planted by the water. I am held, even in a dry year.

Pastor Reyes Castillo

More from Pastor Reyes: his books, including Called by Name and Freedom Code, are at thewayofthewarrior.org/books. Tap a cover to hear a one-minute message about why each one was written.

Tell us what your town needs prayer for. Post it in The 956 Rundown Facebook group, and I'll carry those needs, by name, into a future Sunday Word.

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