A Hawaiian Rainbow

After forty days of rain and many days of floods, the story of Noah ends with a rainbow in the sky. The story attributes the rainbow as a sign of God's promise never to bring such a destructive flood again. (I often wondered how those who lost possessions and loved ones in great floods feel about that promise.) Nevertheless, we do often look at the rainbow as a sign of hope and promise.

The scientific explanation of a rainbow is that the atmosphere filled with tiny rain droplets acts as a giant prism, separating white light into its component colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. When does the rainbow usually appear? I have seen them most often at the end of a summer thunderstorm. While it is still raining, the sun sometimes peeks through the clouds, and we see a rainbow. Sometimes it is a double or even a triple rainbow.

Today is St. Patrick's Day. The Irish leprechauns say that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Isn't that really another way of saying there is a promise of happiness after the storm? We all get a feeling of wonder when we see a rainbow. How many other occurrences in nature cause us to exclaim to each other, "Look, there is a so-and-so."

We all experience storms in our lives. There are times when the storm drives us to despair. Sometimes we feel like we will not survive the constant buffeting of wind, blackness, and rain in our lives. Then we see the rainbow. We know that beyond our present suffering there is hope for the future. Sometimes that hope is short-lived, yet for a time we experience the joy that follows the rainbow.

May you find a rainbow after the storm that you are experiencing in your life. God set the rainbow in the sky as a promise of peace after the storm. May that peace be the reigning event in your life. Even the storm that Noah experienced ended. Your storm will also end.