Thank You For The Rainbow

I haven’t posted for awhile because what I need to post right now is a hard one for me.  The last 2 weeks have been somewhat of a blur, with days just running together.  On Friday, September 25, my mom and best friend passed away.  There is a lot that runs through your mind when you lose someone you love so much, but right now I want to focus on the miraculous.  The Saturday before Mom passed, I read a quote.  It simply said, “Keep the faith.  Hold on.  Things will get better.  It may be storming now, but it can’t rain forever.”  I loved that quote the instant I read it, and I thought of my mom.  She had been through SO much these last four years.  The day after I read that quote I helped little preschoolers at church put together a craft.  We learned about Noah and made rainbows together.  I knew I wanted to find Mom a rainbow.  She was physically and mentally deteriorating more every day from the cancer.  That was not the life I wanted for her.  So you start to pray differently.  I purposed to go visit on Thursday.  The hospice nurse said he figured she may have 2 more weeks left to live.  He also said I would be okay to come on the weekend, but I chose Thursday.  So I dropped the kids off with Shawn’s mom and planned to drive to Ohio to visit with mom a few days, probably drive back home, and then come back the next week.  I wasn’t sure of all the logistics yet.  Tuesday morning I sat down at my computer to find some sort of gift with a rainbow on it to give to Mom.  I heard the kids wake up, so I decided I would shut the computer down and look later that evening.  We did some school and broke for lunch.  As I was cleaning up the lunch dishes, the kids went outside to play.  I heard them gasping and shouting, “Look, there’s a rainbow!  Oh, yeah, it is a rainbow!”  I figured they were playing some game.  I dismissed it, and I never went outside.  I mean, it hadn’t even rained that day, or week, for that matter.  Later on, I went out to get something, and the kids called for me to come look at the rainbow.  They said I would only be able to see it in one spot, right above their playset.  Sure enough, it was there, and I felt it was God’s gift to me that day.  I went inside and thanked God profusely.  Sometimes, I am just in awe…God knows my name.  He knows my thoughts.  He sees every tear that falls from my eyes.  And He thought of me.  Wow!  I snapped a picture later with my camera, but the rainbow was fading at that point, but I can still see it faintly in my photo.  Shawn printed it for me, and I drove with that photo all the way to Ohio.  Like I said earlier, your prayers to start to change.  On my drive I prayed God would let Mom be aware of my presence there that evening.  That I could tell her I love her just one more time, and then I prayed that He would take her home to Heaven.  I got there, and when I approached Mom’s bed she smiled faintly.  I told her I loved her.  She told me it back.  I talked a little more, got to hold her hand for awhile.  She called my name, but she couldn’t get the words out to tell me what she wanted to say.  I watched my Dad care for her in ways I never would have thought as a child I would ever have to see.  But he did it, and my heart literally swelled with love for him.  I told Mom before going to bed, “It’s going to get better, Mom.  It really is going to get better.”  She turned her face to me, but I couldn’t make out her thoughts, her expression sort of blank.  I told her I loved her once more and told her “Goodnight.”  She whispered, “Goodnight” back.  That night I had trouble falling asleep, so I prayed, “God, please take her home now.”  Around 8:00 that morning there was a knock on my bedroom door.  It was Dad, “Your mom went to Heaven.”

Now the night I arrived, just a few hours before Mom passed away, Anna and Abigail called me.  They told me Aunt Elaine took them to Build-a-Bear.  The one and only time my kids have ever been to that store was when they made a bunny for Mom and recorded messages on it, “We love you, Grandma.  We’re praying for you.  We hope you get better, Grandma.  We miss you.”  Abigail told me all about the bear she made with Aunt Elaine.  Then she happily told me its name…Rainbow.

Several days later I was watching Dad open letters from friends after the visitation.  I decided to help him with the task.  The first letter I opened, and I think the only one I opened that day, opened with, “May God give you for every storm a rainbow…”

A song called “I Believe” written by Chris August played quite a bit in our house this year when thinking of my mom. I used to play it at times while cooking dinner or after putting the kids to bed.  Shawn even played it on his guitar, and we would sing it together.   The first verse goes like this, “I don’t need a rainbow to know Who made the rain.  Don’t need waters parted to know Who made the way.  And I don’t need a healing to know Who is the cure.  Of this I’m sure.  Cause I believe that there is something more than I can see.  I believe that the arms of Jesus are holding on to me.  And sometimes I won’t feel it, but that don’t change a thing, cause it’s by faith that I believe.”

Mom’s storm is over.  And God was with us in the boat the whole entire time.  Thank you, God, for Your evidence in our small, little lives.