Up the Sunbeam

"When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds," Genesis 9:14 NLT God delights in putting examples all around us that can speak to us if we're listening.  Last week I drove all over an unfamiliar neighborhood, possibly even breaking a few traffic rules to find a spot where I could capture this breathtaking rainbow! There is no . . . height without depth, dawn without dark, found without lost, reunion without parting victory without defeat, rainbow without storm. We would never know how high the mountaintop is unless we had been to the valley.  Our hearts would not thrill to the first rays of sunrise without experiencing the long dark night.  If we had never known the panic of a missing child (even if only for a moment), we would not know the utter euphoric relief of the moment of finding that lost little one.   Without the ominous black-clouded drama of the storm played out in a wild sky, we wouldn't know how much the rainbow's pr...

-- Storm watch! For days ahead of time they warned of a stack of storms from the Pacific. Anticipation . . . then . . . I awoke to the sound of rain bullets pelting windows in the wee hours, drivin g wind forcing water sideways. Drummer Boy stumbled out of bed early--I think he couldn't resist nature's finest percussion--he probably wondered if he could play his double-bass that fast! What a wild, raucous celebration!! Like an orchestra playing big bold brassy music, with cymbals crashing and timpanis thundering, the weather was a wild thing all day! Rain started. . . and stopped . . . and started again. My 4th floor office affords almost a 360° view and there was a lot to see! By late afternoon, a cloud made of midnight crested over the hills to th e west, while the east side of the building was bathed in light as warm as morning sun! It seemed night and day were colliding directly above us! All at once, the rain in that rolling black thunderhead crashed h...

I watched the news this morning. Ever feel like Henny Penny was right and the sky really is falling? Bombs in far away places, more than 100 killed, mostly women and children . . . The powers that be, fighting for the lives of fish and animals while they callously starve people and abort babies . . . World leaders promising to save the world while they try to steal our freedom . . . A 15 year old girl gang-raped while a crowd of onlookers just watched the sh ow . . . A 7 year old girl, slain, discarded with the trash, laid to rest in a coffin excruciatingly small . . . How bleak the view wher e there aren't shades of grey black enough to do justice to the darkness of the scenes played out before our incredulous eyes. What do we do when it looks so impenetrably dark? How do we keep from giving in to the sadness and fear and hopelessness of a despairing world? Even worse, what do we do about a world blinded to the darkness to the point that some even call darkness light....