First Baptist Church of Herndon

At the end of your Rainbow

Linda Soller | Sep 18, 2012

What is not to like about a rainbow? Rainbows don’t hurt anything, they are lovely to look at, and they appear infrequently enough to make you feel special when you see them. Okay, so there is rain connected with the rainbow, but rain gets a bad rap, just ask the farmers in the mid-west.  Not that long ago I had an encounter with an amazing rainbow, which got me to thinking. I thought I knew the story about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I was intrigued so I headed to Google. Your Physics teacher would tell you that rainbows are created when sunlight reflects off of raindrops breaking up the light into separate wavelengths of color. But you and I know we do not always see a rainbow when the conditions would seem to be perfect. In Irish legend it is the fairies who put gold in the pot at the end of the rainbow and the leprechauns who guard it.  Obviously we are to believe if we could find that pot of gold we would be pretty lucky, wealthy and therefore happy. It is an appealing story, but we know that wealth is no guarantee of happiness. I think most of us would like to put that idea to the test, but deep down we know that many things we cannot put a price tag on bring us the most happiness.

Driving home from our summer vacation we came through some pretty good storms and they seemed to be following us up Rt. 95. As we headed west to drop off my cousin we were driving toward a beautiful sunset.  Once we delivered her safely at her house we headed back to the east on a bigger, more open highway. That was when we saw it. My parents and I saw the most beautiful rainbow, a full half circle; that seemed to touch the ground on both sides. The colors were vivid and there was a second, fainter rainbow above it. Like when the Fraggles found the “Perfect Blue Rollie”; it was amazing and distracting and incredible and we didn’t want to let go of it.  We were frantically snapping pictures that did not do it justice. Everyone on the road was driving slower, not slow, but slower. Everyone was gazing at the rainbow. Even more amazing was that we could see that rainbow the whole way down the road, a good 35 minutes.  As we neared my house I joked that one end seemed to be right where we were going and maybe we would find our pot of gold.  We could see it right until we got home.  I read about rainbows, the story, the myth, the facts, the opinions, and none of them had prepared me for the reality. God promised Noah that there would never be another flood like the one he and his family survived. He put his bow in the sky as a visual for us humans who need reminders. That day I felt God hung the rainbow right there for the three of us as a reminder that he was near.  And while we had just been on a lovely vacation he was reminding us that our pot of gold was our family here at home. What is at the end of your rainbow?  Have a great week.

:o)   Linda