severe storms blew through the st. louis area tonight, but right before they began, i happened to look out my front window to check the sky...this is what i saw. i quickly grabbed my camera and stood out in the rain to get a good angle...in my snoopy pajama pants and a tank top, might i add...ptL i was wearing a bra! :p i'm so stinkin' classy! ahem. anyway.i've always loved rainbows. i don't see them very often...which makes them all the more special. they are a promise.
12 and God said, "this is the sign of the covenant i am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 i have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 whenever i bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 i will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, i will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." --genesis 9:12-16 niv
yet another of the many promises in the bible of God's love and protection.
tonight during the storm, i was browsing facebook, and i read a status that my cousin, mindy, had just posted:
"getting a picture of how i must look and sound to God on days things don't go exactly as i think they should or want them to. the girls are panicking about the storm. i keep telling them to trust us, and that mommy and daddy will protect them. they continue to panic."
my life hasn't exactly gone the way i thought it would. it would look a whole lot different if my plans had succeeded...i would have been married...probably have started a family by now...very surely be living in a whole different state. but instead, i was steered in an opposite direction. an opposite direction not without its happy times...but also not without its hurts. those of which sometimes...a lot of the time...leave me feeling left out and left behind.
"hey God," i cry in my whiny voice...(sometimes i whine to God.) "God, i'm right here. ready. not sure why these things that i want aren't happening. they are happening for my friends. what is it about me that what I want can't happen!?!? don't forget me, God!!!!!!!!" sometimes i can be pretty bratty.
other times, i'm more panicky...
"hey God," (that's usually how my prayers start...really respectful, huh.) "God, i'm not sure if i can handle this. God, really. it's too much. i'm not strong enough, i'm scared, i'm not sure i'm going to make it."
trust. a word i've struggled with my whole life. it's a hard one to swallow. especially for an independent...and for lack of a better word...spitfire...such as myself. i'm extremely stubborn, and i LOVE to be in control. not necessarily in a lead position...but i like to have control...over my emotions, over situations, over...MY life. and it sometimes makes me panic when i realize that i don't have any of that.
but wouldn't it be easier, i ask myself, if i could just trust that He's got my life all planned out?
it totally would!
but i in my childlike "little picture" world, can only see what storm rages around me at the moment. i can't see what my Daddy does. i need to learn to trust...or at least learn it better.
so...until then, He will keep sending rainbows to remind me of His love and protection and infinitely perfect plan for my life. and i'll keep looking out for them. :)
