Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Rainbow

Here's a story.... about me.... about who I am....
I wrote it a few years ago and it's the story my blog is named after....

Quite awhile ago when I was the young single mother of my oldest I asked God for something... It wasn't money, a better job, or even a good man.

It was a dark time in my life. I was just coming to terms that I was going to have to be a single mother and I had to move back to my hometown, take a job at McDonald's for minimum wage, use foodstamps, and swallow my pride. I ran from this town... I didn't want to be there... growing up there was a small piece of hell I'd have rather forgotten. And then I found myself back in that town where I was never quite good enough, the ugly-duckling, not smart, not talented, and unliked, working a dead-end job, bogged down with the left over baby fat.

It was one rainy morning. I don't remember the season, I just remember the rain. I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself, unloved and unimportant. I just wanted to know, to be sure, to understand that God was listening, that He cared about me... So I asked him to show me a rainbow that day... I looked out at the rain and decided that God sent a rainbow before to Noah as a promise and I just wanted to know that He was there and real and He could send a rainbow to me... BTW I wasn't questioning the existence of God or His love... I just needed a sign that he was hearing me.

I went to work and it rained, I picked up my son and it continued to rain. I went home and watched out my window as it rained all evening... as the sun set I felt the tears well up and run down my face... my heart was tearing and I felt so forgotten... it didn't work, He didn't hear me. "Maybe there's something wrong with me," I thought as I turned the small TV I had that picked up 3 channels... for some reason it was on the public broadcasting station which I rarely watched... I almost switched the channel without thinking and then I hear the song... the theme song to Reading Rainbow... it was just starting with the image of a book opening and a rainbow flowing from it... Reading Rainbow

WOW... I was looking outside for a rainbow all day long... I was waiting for God to do it my way but in the quiet of my home He blessed me His way... I still don't know how the channel was set but I know why...