Praying for Rainbows

This past week has been deeply emotional - I found myself holding back the tears and by the end of each day exhausted  - drained even though I hadn't let the tears flow outwardly.  I relived each day a year ago from the 23rd when our extended family got to meet Ethan and say good-bye; to the 24th when we got to spend one more day with him, just Mommy and Baba and our son, and then let him go; the 25th when we had to mix the sorrow of meeting with the funeral director, with celebrating with new found pastor life friend  the birth of their healthy baby girl - to telling our young sons that their baby brother was never coming home; the 26th was again full of funeral preparations - for myself selecting music to celebrate our love for our son and to grieve his loss, and writing what he was to us and our hearts for the funeral home memorial folder - to spending hours watching over his lifeless form as friends and family gathered to give us their hugs, tears, and love, and closing the casket over him before we left that night; to the 27th - the day we placed his body in the ground - the finality of being cut off from him while we are on earth - I so wanted to wake up from the terrible dream...  I have felt the finality of Ethan's journey from our arms to the arms of Jesus so acutely this past week that at moments I have felt as if I was drowning in the depths.  Lost hope seemed to pile upon lost hope, and the glimmer of God's promises were once again fading from my limited view, and then.... there were rainbows.  When I was young I received a heart prism from my parents - I have treasured it for many years and then the strand that I used to hang it from nails over a window or from a car visor broke and I put it in the back of my jewelry box to fix someday.  I dug it out this week and hung it in my bedroom window to catch the afternoon light - to remind me of the vision of God's promises when I am exhausted at the end of my day.  When we miscarried our first child in April of 2009 for some reason the first thing I wanted to do was to go and get a prism, and so we did; we went to the local gift store and found one shaped like a star - it felt appropriate - I hung it in my dining room window to catch the glorious morning sun  - reminding me of God's unfailing love born new each day.   This week I felt the desire to find a new one - to hang in my kitchen window - where I spend so much time uttering heart prayers, and I did - I found a beautifully hand crafted butterfly prism - rather 5 prisms made by an artist into one.  We were graced the week with a glorious late afternoon and as the sun dipped low in the sky its' light penetrated my kitchen window and set hundreds of rainbows dancing  - across my cabinets, ceiling, and floor - My boys and I grabbed each other's hands and had a silly moment of dancing in the rainbows - while my heart was crying out for God's promises to renew our lives.  Then God gave us one of His - spread across the sky it all of its glory after the rain of heaven washed the earth.   Rainbows - those reminders of God's faithfulness and promise of hope - His covenant - sacred promise to us.  As a family, we have chosen to enter a sacred heart covenant with God - trusting... believing...  even as our human minds find us spinning and sinking into despair.  And so I pray for rainbows - those moments that remind us that God is near - that all hope is not gone, and that no matter the storm - God's light always brings rainbows.