Finding Rainbows In Storms

That morning, a storm came in off of the lake. What was unique was the way the cloud bank stayed offshore. The morning sun was to my left, and the storm was to my right. From my perspective in that moment, I felt safe and rather sunny myself. The sun was at my back, the day was new and bright and nothing bad had happened yet.

Fall skies often looked foreboding, yet were harmless.

As I drove across town and the storm got closer, I started to see the clouds come to the shore and darken half the sky. Things began to feel uncertain, yet I felt I would arrive to work before a downpour started.

The sun provided a great perspective to the rapid changes above my head as I drove. It illuminated that bank of clouds in pinks and reds to keep reminding me that it was still at my back and everything was okay. It made the coming storm colorful and beautiful as I drove.

Turning down a side street, I went over the bridge and was greeted with a vibrant rainbow!

You can never be sure where each day will take you

Offshore, it was already raining, but with the sun at my back, it was enough perspective to grant me a beautiful view through the cold raindrops. Although the storm was beginning just a mile or two away, from where I was on top of the bridge, it was now beautiful in a whole new way.

I followed the rainbow clear across town, skirting the edge of the storm as it slowly rolled in. Sometimes, the intensity of the rainbow would wax and wane, but it stayed. My angle was changing in relation to the sun and the rain, so I just tried to take it all in at each red light and enjoy whatever I could.

Keep your spirit open as your journey shifts your perspective

That this rainbow lasted so long brought me such joy! Even though I knew, eventually, the rain would catch up with me – even then, my perspective of joy held fast and I let it fill me with those colors. I didn't let the traffic frustrate me. I simply took in the sight as I was able.

The drops started as I finally pulled into the parking lot, but from this new vantage point, the other end of the rainbow was now coming into view. What had began outside my passenger side was now fully on my driver’s side. And it was as vibrant as ever!

I snapped some shots, framing it against one of our tenant’s tractor trailers, enjoying the visual pun that they were the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It brought me joy to take pictures for them so that I could share this moment with them later.

We can’t always clearly see the rainbows of life

When we are there, we must make the effort to drink in the moment however we can so that we can take that color, that energy and share it with others later.

Before I knew it, those first drops turned into a deluge and I had to run across the parking lot to avoid being drowned. What power! What a change in just such a scant few minutes! What once had been a peaceful and innocent moment was now a terribly powerful storm.

I sat in my office and watched the outside world darken with rain. I wondered if someone on the other side of town was getting treated to a rainbow just about now. People further south than I would then have the proper perspective as the sun shown through raindrops that were pelting me.

It gave me pause…

There will always be storms when we wish for sun

Some storms will be fierce and darken everything around us, threatening to drown us.

But from some angle, from some perspective, each storm that comes into our lives has a rainbow in it.

Every intense and perhaps troubling experience has a positive quality to it, a lesson.

Have you ever gone through something truly painful? Life changing? Terrible?

And, in the midst of it, you were in the depths of despair and felt like you were in a bottomless pit?

Were you able, years later, to look back and see how that experience was able to help you to learn about yourself? Were you able to gain perspective and understand that it happened to you to help you become the person that you are today?

If you are in the bottomless pit right now, and the rain is all around, let me remind you.

This is an outside experience coming at you from outside yourself.

The wonderful you inside is STILL in there and you are going to be OKAY. You are a strong person and the storm will not literally last forever. And you will come to a solution to get yourself out of that pit, out of the rain and you will dry off and find the sun again.

Somewhere, right now, from some perspective of your own personal storm, there is a rainbow. A rainbow of enlightenment about yourself, the situation and about the future.

Lessons come in storms

They are hard to see, but they are there. Don't let your emotions over-ride your ability to stay calm and look at the situation from a rational perspective.

Keep a picture of a rainbow somewhere in your world that you might catch a glimpse of it daily.

Leave it there to remind you that, whatever happens today, there is a rainbow in the storm.

And let it remind you that you’ll be okay.

And you will take that rainbow and absorb it and let it shine out from you.

You won’t let the storms wash you away.

Remind yourself that you are a rainbow for others. You can take what you have been through and shine out and reflect your truth…

That it might become their truth as well.

Be a rainbow today and shine!