April showers bring May flowers.

My mother taught me this couplet in childhood. The meaning seemed obvious even to a little boy. Flowers need rain to grow.

According to the Internet, the source of all factual knowledge, the short poem originated in the 12^th century. Thomas Tusser included the verse in his collected works titled, A Hundred Good Points of Husbandry. I apologize, good reader, but I did not research the other ninety-nine points.

Tusser may have “borrowed” his rhyme from a passage in “The Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer wrote:

When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March’s drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower.

I personally prefer Beverly Burch’s version to Geoffrey Chaucer’s verse!

Others seek deeper meaning in the words. We live in a fallen world where it rains on the just and unjust alike. God uses life’s storms to cultivate spiritual virtues. All sunshine a desert makes. We discover divine blessings grow in the aftermath of earthly torrents.

April showers bring May flowers; but do you know what May flowers bring? The Pilgrims!

May God grant appropriate measures of rain, sunshine, and flowers in our lives.