Over the Rainbow...

Rainbows are notoriously welcome crowd pleasers.Usually making an appearance right after a rain shower, they are always a welcome and cheerful sight. They are also rare because a rain shower does not guarantee a rainbow will follow, so each time one does appear, it strikes an awesome wonder in us as it stretches and bows its colorful splendor across the sky.

Irish mythology  has it that there is a pot of gold located at the end of a rainbow with a cute and lively Leprechaun guarding it, and only dispensing the gold coins to the most deserving beneficiaries. Many of us as children grew up believing in this tall tale, and two very famous composers wrote a song “Over the Rainbow” in 1939 for the movie “The Wizard of Oz” (Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg) that promised bluebirds could fly so high over the rainbow, and by believing it was possible one human could also.

The real motivation here behind this lovely and timeless song is that if we are willing to believe hard and long and faithfully in what seems impossible, then we can indeed walk across the bridged gap between reality and the stuff dreams are made of. The coming alive of the dream is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

How many of us have stretched our imaginations and dreamed our dreams and rode on the tailwinds of fantasies made entirely realistic by a rainbow? After all the biblical explanation of a rainbow was that God made it and put in the heavens after the flood that destroyed the earth as a sign and a covenant promise from him that the world would never again be destroyed by water (Genesis 9:13-17 KJV).

If we want to make a connection between this and our dreams, we can know that through faith and trust in God we can touch the intangible, see the invisible and believe the impossible. Doesn’t this put a rainbow perspective on things?

My friend and fellow grandmother Claudette Richardson had so many doubts and fears in her life before she looked to the rainbow. When she first started talking about rainbows and how they fit into her life, I must admit I was baffled. I didn’t understand where she was coming from with all of this talk. She obviously was way ahead of me in her belief and value system and what she considered spiritual. After she broke in down to me I was impressed with her steadfastness and her stalwart devotion to the manifestation of miracles and rainbows.

Even though she was physically present here with us, her spirit had already soared “over the rainbow” into a place where she could live in peace, joy and a comfort that can only be received by accepting something supernatural. By supernatural I mean “not able to be done or achieved by man” but only by the wonderfully free and marvelously liberating grace of God! For by living under grace we can truly let go of selfish motives and get off of the merry-go-round of trying to fix our lives and how we react to our circumstances.

Claudette has been an inspiration to her friends and a shining example of what a Christian woman should be. This sis something we all need; a person we can look to as a port in a storm. God gives us these special people in our lives…sometimes for just a season and at other times if we are so blessed…for a lifetime. We will always have our faults and we always fall short of the glory, but with an anchor cast upon a rainbow…we will never go too far adrift in this sea we call LIFE.