I just glanced outside and saw this mystical hue filling our front yard, dark black clouds sitting behind my brightly lit trees brimming with fall color.  I commented to Caleb as he worked on his writing,  “Look out the window – it looks magical out there doesn’t it?”.  He agreed and I wondered out loud if there might be a rainbow out there because it had just started to rain in the midst of such bright light.  Kyler headed out on the porch to check and indeed, there was one.  We ran to check it out. It was stunning.

We stood and soaked it all in.  Pretty soon there were two rainbows, the second one fainter than the first.  Kyler said “Oh how I wish I could climb the tree where it meets the ground! It would be so amazing!”  I asked him what he’d do if he could and he said “Well, I’d touch it.  I’d climb on it and it would be beautiful!”.  Though he’s heard me explain it before, knows its just light reflecting and the result of the perfect God-designed weather conditions (and the age-old promise He gave to Noah)….when its right there in front of you and its just so unreal how lovely it is.  It’s hard to believe its really even there.

What I couldn’t stop thinking about was if it wasn’t raining right now, there wouldn’t be a rainbow.  I know I can’t be the first person to think that but I couldn’t shake the parallels to my own life.  There is some rain, serious, flash-flood type “are-we-going-to-be-washed-away?” sort of rain.  But even in the midst of it, I have glimpses of the miracles at hand, the sheer beauty of God doing something beautiful in my mess, and it takes my breath away.  Makes me want to grab my (mental) camera and freeze frame my life that very second.

The rain is key to the beauty of the rainbow.  It is key to my rainbows.  I couldn’t possibly “cultivate the land, the life, He’s given me” if I didn’t have a drop of it.  If I only have the sunshine then nothing would be growing here.  The planting of little seeds of life and truth and love all around me, the pruning and clipping back of my vines that can’t bear fruit and the rain….the sometimes despised, often complained about but veritably LIFE GIVING rain in my yard and in my life.

Honest truth is I’m learning to love it, to say welcome to it every day.  Because the learning to keep walking, to keep believing in the midst of rain – this is what I long for.  The fertile life that is soaked and drenched in wet mess but green and sprouting all over?  That’s what I wake up asking for every day.  Looking for rainbows and the promise of miracles, small ones and big, all over the landscape that is my life.