Somewhere Under the Rainbow

On New Year's Eve last year, just two days before the wreck that took my dad, God gave me a double rainbow. It was there a long time—I'd say at least half an hour. Coming on New Year's Eve like it did, it seemed significant...like a promise for the new year. So I took pictures.

Then, just the other day, on Dad's birthday, God gave me another double rainbow! Once again, it stayed for more than half an hour. And coming as it did on Dad's birthday, after losing him so suddenly, it seemed significant again. So once again, I took pictures.

And yesterday, I suddenly remembered a conversation that I had with Dad as a teen, when spring was late in arriving, and I suggested maybe we wouldn't have a spring that year. Dad had pointed out that we can always count on the seasons because that's part of the promise of the rainbow! (Genesis 8:22, 9:8-9, 11-13) Seeing the rainbow on his birthday was just a neat little reminder from both of my dads that life will go on!

Genesis 8
22 "As long as the earth endures,
       seedtime and harvest,
       cold and heat,
       summer and winter,
       day and night
       will never cease."

Genesis 9
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you.
12 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant....”

After the storm of sorrow, after the flood of tears, after the days of lonely isolation when the Land of Hope is nowhere in sight—after it all—comes the rainbow. Quietly, gently, catching us by surprise—it soars above the horizon. The rainbow—God's promise that the seasons will arrive again this year. His promise that life will go on.