Category Archives: faith

Nov6

Good Days

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The blessings of being refreshed…

Yesterday was an epically great day.  It was fabtacular!  It was, in fact, blogworthy, for several reasons.  So I want to share my day with anyone who might happen to read this post.

The day started with a simple pleasure, a sweet-smelling bubble bath.  I had won an eBay auction on some shower gel in a favorite scent that has been discontinued, and my bottle of aromatherapy had arrived in the mail on Monday.  My nose, skin and mood were pampered by this simple indulgence, so the day started off great and only got better.

Yesterday was also the much-anticipated day of the Alton Brown Edible Inevitable concert tour stop in Knoxville at The Historic Tennessee Theatre.  I looked forward to this for months.  Not only did he do his show, he announced a “flash signing” at the venue in the afternoon.  I was able to go, get him to sign my Granddad’s antique butcher’s apron and have a photo made and a chat.  He seems to be a genuinely nice guy.

I am a huge fan of Alton Brown, Food Network fixture, creator of the program “Good Eats”, chef, author, food scientist, TV show host and Peabody Award winner.  He also plays guitar and is quite the comedian.  His live shows have received great buzz on social media with good reason.  They are hilarious!

The tickets went on sale the day after my chorus and I arrived in New York City last June for our Carnegie Hall performance, which I wrote about in previous posts.  At breakfast in the diner before our first rehearsal, I was freaking out and melting down because I was unable either by phone or on the Web to get through to any site or venue to purchase show tickets.  A flurry of texts and e-mails to Sweet Pea followed, and with some effort, he was able to procure tickets, FINALLY.  So I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the New York trip and focus on the music and memories being made there, while anticipating the Alton Brown show coming in the fall.

I had met Mr. Brown 4 years ago when he was on-site at work for that year’s United Way kickoff.  I still can’t believe that whoever planned the event managed to keep it quiet until he was actually on the premises.  I had the chance to meet him and chat, and have a photo with him.  The one I am sharing here is from my boss’s Blackberry.

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Ensuing years brought, among other things, weight loss surgery for me, as well as lots of other changes, including menopause, deaths of loved ones and hitting the big 5-0.  So I approached yesterday’s photo-ops with gratitude, and a little trepidation because looking older is not a prospect that brings me joy.  Fortunately, I think the pictures turned out all right.  (Believe me, I’d never share them otherwise!)

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It was also manicure and haircut day.  Again, simple indulgences that can do wonders for a girl’s mood, self-esteem and sense of well-being.  My friend, “Queen” Elizabeth, introduced me to the place I now go to get my nails done, and as it happened, yesterday she had an appointment scheduled not long after mine.  So visiting with her was an unexpected treat as we both had our hands transformed by the experts at the nail salon.  Elizabeth is a source of wonderful positive reinforcement and a bubbly friend, a joy to be around.  Seeing her yesterday was a sweet surprise.

From there it was haircut time with Brianna, who always gives me cute hair and makes me feel good about myself.  I think a good hair person is as important as a good doctor, and for many of the same reasons.  They fix a problem and make me feel better.

After the haircut I had a little time before the show, so I was able to go by Lola’s and check on the house.  I’ve been going by there about once a week just to make sure things are OK.  When I got out of my car, I saw a small downy feather floating down across her front yard just a few yards away from me.  I was rooted to the spot as I watched its slow-motion descent to the ground instead of chasing it.  Once it landed and I was able to snap out of my haze, I did try to find the feather on the ground, but I wasn’t able to.  I think it might have been Lola’s way of letting me know she was with me, because I felt her presence as I watched that feather floating through the air.

From there I went to Pizza Palace for spaghetti and a t-shirt (the shirt is something I’ve been trying to get for almost 2 years and has eluded me for whatever reasons!) I picked up one for me and one to take to Alton Brown as a souvenir of his stop in Knoxville.  He seemed happy to receive it and asked me where his pizza was!

The show was hilarious and I laughed until my face and throat were sore.  Today I’ve been able to rest and enjoy a quiet day snuggling with Our Boy Roy, listening to gentle rain and reading.  In the mail today I received a wonderful surprise, a “mailable hug” from my talented friend Katie Jo.  She has started a campaign of sharing hugs via the mail and social media.  I am sharing my hug here and in every other way I can.

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Share this hug with everyone you know.

#thehugproject

#spreadhugsnothate

I told Sweet Pea last night that I almost felt guilty for having such a great day and enjoying it so much. He looked at me and said, “You’ve been through some @#$%.  You deserve a great day.”

I think we ALL deserve a great day.

Oct29

Arms

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Memories of embraces past…

Tuesday, October 28, 1997 was one of the worst days of my life.  It was the day Mama went into the hospital.  It was the beginning of the end, of Mama’s life and of an era in our family.

At this time, on that night, I was at the hospital to spend the night with her.  It was a bad night for us both, for numerous reasons.  She was nervous and agitated, and the medicine given to calm her down only upset her stomach.

There are lots of things about her last month and a half of life that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.  I was still trying to work during most of that time while staying as many nights as possible at the hospital.  Sleep-deprived and stressed out, I know there are lots if things I don’t remember now.  But I remember some moments with vivid clarity.

I remember people’s arms around me.  I remember the night Mama’s condition was so bad that they had to bring  a portable ultrasound up to her room because they needed to do tests and didn’t want to wait for transport to come and take her down because she was so unstable.  Jeff had come to visit both with her and with me, and her condition upset him.  That was his meltdown moment during the last of her illness.  He cried like his best friend was dying and I couldn’t offer him much comfort.  We just held each other.

Dad had spent Mama’a last full night with her at the hospital, and I came the next day to relieve him.  He left and I settled in to spend what turned out to be her last day at the hospital with her.  She was unresponsive, and not too long after I got there her breathing changed.  I know now that she was actively dying.  A nurse came in and asked how long her breathing had been like that, and I said about a half hour.  The nurse then told me that I could talk to Mama, hold her hand and pet her if I wanted to. She said she didn’t think Mama was in any pain and that she didn’t think anything was going to bother or disturb her now.  She told me she would check on us during the day and if I needed anything at all to just call.  She put her arm around my shoulder and just stood with me for a few minutes, saying nothing more.

Countless times during her hospital stay, people hugged me, squeezed me tight and infused me with strength for the battle.  Guardian angels from my own family held me close as we all cried with sadness over what Mama was enduring, and what we all knew was to come.  I never take a hug for granted anymore.  I know the difference it can make.

After Mama died, at the graveside after the service was over, people were starting to disperse and leave.  I sat by her casket for what seemed like the longest time, by myself.  I knew the cemetery people would make me leave soon, but I wanted to spend those last few minutes with her.  My cousin Van, a favorite person in my life who I don’t see nearly often enough, came over and sat down beside me.  He didn’t say a word.  He just put his arm around my shoulder and sat with me.  I never felt more loved, more understood, than I did at that moment.

Many times I have leaned on the arms of other people for strength and comfort.  I hope that my arms have provided strength and comfort for the people in my life as well.  I believe one of the most powerful ways God loves us is through the love of other people. As I have leaned into the arms of other human beings, I have felt the everlasting arms of God spoken of in the old hymn from my childhood.

 

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Lord of love, thank You for holding me with the arms of the people You have sent me when I needed them most.  Use my arms and hands to comfort, strengthen and encourage the people in my life who need to feel You in theirs.

Oct22

We’ve All Got Something

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Sharing burdens…

My left arm and shoulder look totally “normal”. At least, the skin there looks normal. It is unmarked by anything except age and the looseness resulting from shrinkage following my weight loss surgery.

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My right arm and shoulder, however, look quite different. I have a rare skin condition there called lichen sclerosus et atrophicus (LSA).

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I first noticed a strange-looking little patch of shiny, white skin when I was about 20 years old. Mama noticed it too, and I remember her being terrified that it was psoriasis. She took me to see a dermatologist, who performed a biopsy to make sure that it was not cancer.  Then he gave me the diagnosis of LSA and said that in all his years of practice, he had only seen a couple of cases.  Then came the parade of students, nurses and other lookers-on to view my skin, because, “This may be their only opportunity to see this condition.  It’s that rare.”  Several times since then, that scenario has repeated itself as doctors ask me if I mind their nurses and med students coming in to take a look.  I don’t really mind if medical professionals want to see it, as long as they treat me like a human and not just a disease.

Looking back, I wish it had been something as common and as treatable as psoriasis. I don’t minimize the seriousness of psoriasis; it can be a devastating condition. But at least people are familiar with the term, and there are treatments for it.

My condition is much less common, and much less treatable. There is no known cause, and the only known treatment is a specially-compounded testosterone ointment or cream which may or may not be covered by health insurance.  The testosterone treatment never helped me anyway, so it doesn’t matter that my insurance doesn’t cover it.

The affected skin does not behave like normal skin.  The LSA penetrates through to the deepest layers of the dermis.  When exposed to the sun, it doesn’t tan.  Sometimes it hurts.  Occasionally a patch of the affected skin will break open, but it doesn’t bleed.  It weeps.  And sometimes it itches, the kind of itch that makes me want to scratch at it with a fork!

The condition gradually spread down my upper arm and up toward my neck.  It expanded to roughly twice its original area when I was about 40 years old, I suspect due to my changing hormones around that time.  But that’s just a guess.

I am really fortunate as far as LSA patients are concerned.  Over 90% of cases are located on the patient’s genitalia, and the condition often impairs urinary/excretory and sexual functioning.  So I am blessed that it’s just on my arm and shoulder.

Why am I sharing all of this?  I guess I just needed to remind myself that we’ve all got something…some scar, pain, fear, disappointment.  Some burden we carry.  If I can be open about my burdens, maybe I can be more sensitive to the burdens of other people.  Maybe I can even share them.

Oct7

Bookworm Paradise

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Read. Nap. Repeat…

My idea of the perfect vacation has changed over the years (and decades).  When Reed and I were little kids, Mama and Dad took us on a week’s vacation to Myrtle Beach every summer.  What I looked forward to then was spending lots of time floating and frolicking in the surf and sand, looking for shells and sharks’ teeth, and riding the rides at the amusement park.  And one night during the week we would usually go to the movies as a family, which was a huge treat and something I always enjoyed.

As an adult with a job and responsibilities of my own, my desires for a vacation are a lot calmer and simpler than they used to be.  One of my greatest pleasures on a trip is just being able to read as much, and for as long, as I want to.  I’ve been a bookworm since childhood, but as a child, school and reading were my job.  So I didn’t always read a lot during my summer vacations.  Now, my JOB is my job, and reading often has to take a backseat to the other demands on my time and energy.  So now, vacations provide me with a block of time in which I can read all I want.

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That probably seems boring to some people, and that’s OK.  Some folks are weekend warriors who enjoy adventurous vacations filled with bungee-jumping-rock-climbing-skydiving activities.  Cool.  I looked into ziplining for this trip and that’s still not out of the question.  Flying sounds like a lot of fun to me!

I always bring my Bible with me when I travel, because, like my vitamins and supplements, it is part of my daily nourishment.  I would feel lost if I didn’t have it with me.  The practice of daily Bible reading doesn’t make me good or pious.  It makes me grateful.  And over the years it has become a part of the day that I look forward to.

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Vacations provide me with a change of scenery, new places to read and write and rest.  Right now I am sitting out back enjoying a balmy Gulf breeze, crystal clear blue sky, sunshine and the rippling water of the swimming pool, a scene very unlike the autumn chill we left behind back home.  It feels like a different season… a different world.

My friend Eileen, and her husband Brad, have a charity website dedicated to bookworms and reading.  It is called gonereading.com.  In addition to offering products for reading enthusiasts, the website donates 100% of their after-tax profits to fund reading-related charities, particularly READ Global and Ethiopia Reads.  One of their very cool t-shirts summarizes my vacation dreams perfectly:

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So, I encourage you to visit http://www.gonereading.com.  They don’t offer books, but they offer everything else a bookworm needs and desires to support their reading habits!  And they help to provide reading resources to people who would not otherwise have access to them.   For now, I am off to enjoy a little more Bookworm Paradise!

Sep17

Walking Shoes

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A journey of a thousand miles…

I am a casual dresser most of the time.  My work environment is informal so my attire often consists of jeans and sneakers.  In recent years I have rediscovered a fondness for what I used to refer to as “boy tennis shoes”, which are Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars.  They are comfortable, cute and available in every color imaginable.

A couple of the fellows at work have Chucks in colors that I also own, and they kindly agreed to allow me to photograph our feet in our matching shoes for this blog.

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The smaller feet in the pictures are mine.  The blue shoes belong to Jacob, and the red ones are Matthew’s.   Big feet and little ones side by side in matching shoes are sort of comical…but for me, the images remind me that we are all journeying through this life, walking side by side with our neighbors, yet each of us on a unique path.

Imagine me trying to walk my path in Matthew’s shoes, or in Jacob’s!   My little feet would have trouble keeping those shoes on because they are much too large for me.  And Jacob and Matthew could not even begin to fit their man feet into my tiny girl shoes!  Our footwear looks the same, but my shoes were made to fit me, just as theirs were intended to fit them.

I think our gifts, talents, personalities and experiences are just like our shoes.  God equips each of us with a set of tools—shoes, if you will—for life’s journey.  My shoes might look like someone else’s, but they fit me alone.  And the longer I walk in them, the more miles we cover together, the more my shoes take on the shape of my feet.  The toes scuff up in a certain spot, the sides wear in a particular fashion, and the soil on the soles is unique to my path and the places I walk through.

I am thankful for my “shoes”, the gifts of God that take me along the path of my life.  I am grateful for the gifts of others whose journeys intersect with mine along the way.   Lord, guide my steps.

“Trust in The Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he shall direct your paths.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

Thanks to Jacob Simms and Matthew Lloyd for sharing their shoes with me!

Sep4

Harbingers

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Bearing the signs of change…

Relief is coming.  I see the signs most vividly on my dogwood tree.  While the temperatures in East Tennessee are still hot and the humidity is still high, my dogwood tells me that fall is on its way and soon there will be respite from summer’s moist, heavy air.

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The past 2 summers have held an additional heaviness for me as well, the weight of grief bearing down as oppressively as the soaring temperatures and wilting humidity.  Stepping physically into the heat feels much like stepping onto the path of mourning, as though somehow my energy is being drained from me, body and soul.  I know this path well.  It seems like I’ve been walking it for most of my life.  Still, its familiarity does not make it any easier to navigate, nor any shorter.

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But relief is coming.  The changing colors on my dogwood tree are just the earliest harbingers of changes yet to begin.  Soon the maples, oaks and other trees will begin their turning from summer’s greens to the parade of warmer shades brought on by the cooler temperatures.  Such a graceful paradox, cooler bringing warmer and vice versa.

Relief is also coming for my grief.  There will never be a total removal of pain from the deaths of those I love, nor should there be.  But gradually, over time and with the changing seasons, the pain becomes less sharp, always lingering but not as suffocating as before.

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Relief is coming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug4

Her Name Was Lola

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Feathers, fortunes, fashions and a friendship in black and white…

Saturday, July 26, 2014, did not start out quite like any other day…and it certainly did not end like one.  I went to work as usual, but that is where anything normal ceased.  The parking garage at work was closed for maintenance so I had to enter the building a different way, and as I did, I found a very cool black and white feather, one I never would have seen had I entered the regular way.  Normally a feather brings me joy, but this one made my heart and my stomach trade places.

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My friend Lola had recently (and reluctantly) taken another medical leave from work to try to gain some strength and, she hoped, begin a clinical trial for an experimental treatment for the lung cancer that had been diagnosed about 2 and 1/2 years ago.  She had never smoked a day in her life, by the way.  She underwent surgery, chemo, side effects, radiation and more side effects and acceleration of the disease.  Then she changed doctors and treatment centers and was placed on a medication that gave her a new lease on life for a number of months.  In her words, it bought her some time.  But eventually that treatment became ineffective as well, and her doctors placed her at the head of the list for a clinical trial.  But paperwork took forever and delays kept happening, and with no treatment of any kind to slow the disease process, she became much sicker, much quicker, so she arranged to take time off from work.

When she took this last leave, I gave her a speech.  “I know your mother loves you, but she lives in Atlanta.  And I know Kevin (her fiance’) loves you, but he lives in Los Angeles.  I love you and I am here, and I could get to you quickly if you needed me to.  So I think the time has come for me to check in with you every day, just to see if you’re doing OK, if you need anything from the store, that kind of thing.” And she agreed to let me do it.  She was very short of breath so our check-ins were text messages.  It was a lot less taxing for her than trying to carry on a conversation.  I am grateful for those messages now, to be able to look back at our communications that way.

Lola was my coworker first, but over time we became friends.  She used to leave fortune cookies in my work mailbox because she knew I got a kick out of the fortunes.  I collected dozens of them thinking I would use them in a craft project.  That may still happen at some point.  We talked about typical girly stuff, clothes and shoes and makeup.  She was one of the most stylish people I ever knew.  I used to heckle her about her shoes, saying, “If I tried to walk in those heels I’d fall and break every bone in my body!”  She’d just laugh and roll her eyes.  The fortunes below speak volumes about who she was.

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She and I were as different as night and day, physically.  Lola was a tiny slip of a thing, an athlete (some of her speed records in track and field are still standing), very health-conscious her whole life (except for her love affair with Ben and Jerry!), with very dark African skin.  I, on the other hand, had surgery to help me gain control of my health due to overweight issues and am the palest white-skinned person I’ve ever met.  Her cancer surgery was just a few months before my weight loss surgery, and after we both got operated on and were recovering, many of our conversations started to center around our new health concerns.  Calories were a big topic of conversation; my restrictions on them and how she could increase hers to build up her strength.  Vitamins and supplements were also frequently discussed, with recommendations from my dietician and her naturopath.  There were times when both of us found eating much more of a struggle than a pleasure.  Side effects from her treatments and my rapid weight loss gave us more common ground as we both lost hair.  And we both could appreciate the irony of all of this…how very different we were, how different our surgeries (and the reasons for them) were, and yet, here we were experiencing so much of the same stuff.

We spoke about the deeper things of life, too.  In all the time she was sick, never once did she express any self-pity.  Not ONCE.  She did express moments of confusion, as in, “Lung cancer, me? Really?!”  Her biggest questions in all of it were, “What am I supposed to be learning from this?  What am I supposed to gain from this experience and how am I to use that going forward?”  She expressed great concern and compassion for people who have to deal with catastrophic illnesses like cancer without health insurance.  She expressed gratitude that she was not worse off than she was, gratitude for her job and for her health coverage.  Her biggest priorities were not worrying anyone, not being a burden and not leaving anyone at work holding the bag.

She was incredibly strong, fiercely independent and intensely private.  Many people at our work had no idea that she had cancer.  Her death came as a shock to a lot of people.  She tended to keep others at arm’s length.  I will always be grateful that, for whatever reason, she let me into her world and confided in me.  It was an honor to be able to provide what little practical help I was able to, and again, what she would allow.

My last daily text check-in went unanswered for several hours, and I started to feel uneasy.  I knew Kevin was staying with her, which helped me feel a bit more at ease, but I was anxious to hear back, so around midnight the night before she died, I messaged her again, apologizing for texting so late but that I was concerned whether she was OK.  Kevin called me back a few minutes later to tell me that she had started coughing up blood and he had taken her to the hospital, where she was treated and admitted to critical care.  I asked if they needed anything and he said no, they were OK for the time being.  So I told him that I would see them the next day.

I didn’t sleep.  I got to work and found the feather.  I called the hospital to learn the visitation times for the critical care unit, and the next one was at 12:30 pm, my lunchtime.  I thought, OK, this is great, I’ll go then and check on them.  When I arrived, I found her in her bed with a ventilator tube, but no ventilator attached.  And again, my heart and stomach changed places as I realized, “Oh, dear God, she has died…”  DIED.  Kevin had arrived just minutes before I had and was in a consultation room with a nurse.  I found them and we tried to listen to her explain what had happened…I caught some of it and Kevin caught some of it, but I don’t think either of us absorbed it all.  Maybe it’s better that way.  Some stuff we are better off not knowing.

Lola died at 12:19 pm, just minutes before either of us got there.  And I think that was meant to be.  I know with certainty that she would never have wanted Kevin’s last image of her to be her moment of death.  My biggest fear had been that she would die at home by herself and I prayed that would not happen.  I am so grateful that God honored that prayer.

I was able to sit with her for a bit, to say goodbye and tell her not to worry, that we would all be OK, in time.  I hummed and held her hand and told her I loved her and I would miss her.

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She was as different from me as night from day, thin from fat, black from white.  She was my friend.  Her name was Lola.

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Jul22

Considering The Lilies

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Beauty at every stage…

Summertime in East Tennessee is filled with the scents, sounds and colors of nature.  All manner of blooming things burst forth to bring joy and beauty to the world around us.  From roadside patches of wild daisies and Queen Anne’s Lace to the fluffy blooms of the mimosa trees, the world seems awash with the glory of flowers.

Right now I am fascinated by the golden hues of the daylilies in various stages of development around my workplace gardens.  Unlike human beings, these flowering beauties never seem to have an awkward stage.  Even in the flower pod phase their detail is exquisite.

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From here they start to unfurl their trumpet-shaped blooms and reveal the yellow-orange flowers that contrast so beautifully with their green leaves and stems.  No interior designer could create a prettier color scheme.

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I always marvel at the simple, yet miraculous, way that our natural world perpetuates itself.  Perennial plants and flowers that return year after year with little or no intervention from humans amaze me.  We have a little patch of peonies in the front yard that we inherited when we bought our house.  Neither Sweet Pea nor I are wizards with outdoor plants or landscaping, and our peonies have never received much care from us.  Yet, every May, they return with their fluffy double blooms and sweet fragrance.  Some years they have been affected by poorly-timed cold snaps, and other years we’ve enjoyed bumper crops of them.  But they have never failed to come back.

The flowers remind me of God and His masterful craftsmanship.  He could have made our world a sterile, grey place…but He chose instead to delight us, His ultimate creations, with color and beauty throughout nature.  As I consider the lilies, I like to ponder how God must view us at our various stages.  Does He see beauty in all the phases of our lives…of MY life?

Lord, make my life a lovely, fully-flowered blossom whose color and fragrance point people to my Maker, Savior and Friend.

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Jul9

A Two Feather Day

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 Mama’s 75th Birthday and messages from Heaven…

Friday, July 4, 2014 would have been Mama’s 75th birthday.  It was a work day for me, and I was grateful to be at work.  Otherwise I probably would have just brooded at home and felt sad and lonesome for Mama.  At least with work to keep me occupied, I was able to have a bit of a distraction and some productivity.

 

The workplace was quieter than usual since most of the building had the holiday off, and that extra quiet atmosphere was a relief.  I couldn’t help thinking back to the countless birthdays of Mama’s that she and Aunt Ruby had spent canning green beans at Aunt Ruby’s house.  Sometimes there were firecrackers and sparklers once dusk began to settle.  I can still hear the crunching of rock salt in Uncle John’s old-fashioned ice cream freezer, and feel the anticipation of the frosty, creamy deliciousness it would eventually render.  Such sweet memories of simpler, younger days brought me a homesick feeling for the times and places of my yesteryears.

 

I decided to leave the building for lunch.  The day was uncharacteristically balmy, with low humidity and milder-than-typical temperatures for July in East Tennessee.  As I strode toward my car, a feather on the ground caught my eye!  Since I collect them, I was thrilled to find one on this special day, and I looked skyward and said “Thank you!” to God for this wonderful blessing.  

 

Instead of spending the whole hour eating lunch, I went to the nearby arts and crafts store to look for inspiration for my latest scrapbook project and grabbed a quick bite on the way back to work.  After parking my car I headed back into the building to resume my work day, refreshed and grateful for my new feather, when lo and behold, I spotted a second one!  My first thought was, “NO WAY!”  My second thought was, “God and Mama must be looking out for me today because they both know how much I miss her.”  

 

I talked to Dad on the phone last night and told him about my two feather day, reminding him that I collect feathers and babbling on about how special it was to find these on Mama’s birthday.  He asked why I started collecting feathers in the first place, and I explained that, while it may seem childish, I see feathers and like to imagine they dropped from the wing of some guardian angel God placed in my path to watch over me.  I half expected him to laugh at the silliness of such a notion, but, to my surprise, he said that it was a good outlook to have.  Maybe I didn’t give him enough credit.  

 

Who is to say where a person can or cannot find God’s presence?  I think one can find Him anywhere, in anything.  The key to finding Him is just to look with open eyes and an open spirit.  Lord, thank You for the reminders all around me that You are indeed looking after me with watchful, loving care.  Thank You for sending feathers on Mama’s milestone birthday, and for releasing her from the ailing body that trapped her for so long, for freeing her spirit to soar in Heaven with You and so many of our loved ones.

 

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Jun30

Over The Rainbow

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Maybe the rainbow IS the pot of gold…

East Tennessee summers are known for producing sporadic, sometimes intense, pop-up storms, especially in the heat of the late afternoon.  Often those storms come and go in a matter of minutes, and sometimes, if we’re blessed, we can spot a rainbow in their aftermath.  I was fortunate recently to be able to see and photograph a rainbow on my way home from work after such a pop-up thunderstorm.

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A couple of years ago at the end of my extended unit of CPE, Carolyn, a member of my peer group, painted a watercolor for each of us as a gift and as part of her peer review.  Her artistic vision captured each of us as some element or scene from nature.  One of us was an ocean, one of us was a mountain.  Her vision of me was that I was a rainbow.  I was flattered and touched by her assessment of me and her ability to see my true colors (pardon the pun) in this way.

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I’ve often heard the old tale about there being a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  It’s a nice thought, but I am not holding my breath waiting to find that pot of gold anytime soon.  Which end is it supposed to be at, anyway?  The front end or the back end?  Not really the point, I realize…but my mind works like that sometimes.

I think maybe the rainbow is its own pot of gold.  It’s a beautiful treasure, a gift from God, like His very own brushstrokes across the sky reminding me of His promise never again to destroy humanity with a flood.  I think of the many kinds of floods in my life…floods of trouble, illness, death and sorrow.  “When it rains, it pours,” as the old adage states.  But in my floods I know I am never alone.  God is not going to drown me, and He is not going to abandon me in the midst of the pouring rain.