Fire Rainbows

Have you ever seen a fire rainbow? Do you know what a fire rainbow is? It’s a cloud that has taken on the colors of a rainbow. They’re kinda rare, depending on where on the globe you live and weather conditions. They are incredibly beautiful. The conditions that have to exist for this to happen are so very precise. Cirrus clouds, which are the thin wispy ones, form up pretty high in the atmosphere, so they are made up of ice crystals. The sun has to be at an angle of 58 degrees. The light refracts through the crystals, making them prisms and therefore creating a rainbow.

So far in my life, I’ve seen this twice. The first time was the week after Andy died. I had stumbled across the opportunity to attend my first LSU game, the LSU/Florida game. It was always our biggest rivalry as I am a Louisiana girl and he was a Gator fan. Loser bought dinner. A friend had posted an extra ticket to the game, and I jumped on it. On the drive down to Baton Rouge the day of the game, my heart and my mind were so consumed of thoughts, memories, and tears for Andy. He would have loved to go to this game. He would not have gone without me. I looked up in the sky at one point, and for the first time, I saw a cloud with a rainbow in it. I didn’t know what they were called.

Mondays are our Horse Therapy day. Lately, Little One really been opening up about her dad on the way home from Bright Star Ranch. Last week, it was flashes of light in the clouds and 5:55 that really got her going. She talked about him with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. 

Yesterday, it was a Fire Rainbow that got her going. She’d been scanning the clouds to see if she could spot the Angel Lights again, and spotted a fire rainbow. Tears streaming, big smile. We talked about her jumping on him in the evening. We talked about how he would have loved living so close to the lake. We talked about how he would have been proud that I got some baby chicks this weekend. We talked about him yelling “Lady!” into the doorbell camera until I picked up on my phone and then he would say some silly, pointless thing. She talked about his hugs. I miss his hugs. 

I miss him. 

This widow life is hard. The finances are hard. Dating after loss is hard. Parenting with the other person gone is hard. 

She’s almost 11. Starts middle school next year. He’s not here for that. 

I CAN do hard things. 

I miss him.

I can do the hard things because I know that I don’t do it alone.

Phillippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” So many times we hear that verse as Christ strengthening us. And he does. He gives us strength we didn’t have before. He gives us His strength to lean on. Allow me a different interpretation if you will. What if that verse means the through Christ, I can do all things which strengthen me. We can. All of us. He gives us the strength to do the hard things. The God that perfectly aligns a burning ball of gas with a floating rock 93 million miles apart, so that the light can bounce off of a cloud in that rock’s atmosphere so a broken heart or a little girl can see just a whisper of the promise, also gives me strength to do the hard stuff.

That’s kinda big.