When You Need a Rainbow

You need a rainbow....

 ...when your world turns upside down--

 like this travel trailer at an RV park in Lake George, CO, when a twister spun through the valley last Sunday.

On our way to help friends in the mountains again, we passed by these scenes of destruction.

It reminded me of how easy it is for our small world to be devastated.

Twisters come--or things we said and meant are twisted into something totally different--

and we are left with our hearts smashed by the fall of the weight, not of a huge tree,

but of huge misunderstandings and problems that refuse to resolve.

 Trailers are left totally overturned, cracked up, smashed into thousands of pieces---

and there is yellow caution tape strung up around the area,

just like we tend to string up yellow "Caution!" signs around the broken and tender areas of our hearts. 

"Don't come around here! Don't touch me! Don't mess with me! Leave me alone!"

 And so, like the overturned trailer, our hearts hide under the tree that smashed us, behind yellow caution signs, and we think we have no choice but to live a broken life with smashed hearts, upside-down plans, destroyed hopes.

 Till we remember that there is such a thing as a rainbow. 

Even when it feels like it will take a crane to right our world again--

like this crane pulled this big rig back up on its tires again while we were there.

It's entirely possible to actually get some help--

to call on the Crane Operator of the Universe to please send from on high to deliver us and get us back on our feet again.

 It's entirely possible to come through the storm, and the devastation, and the twists and turns of life, to come through them to the other side 

and remember that there are still lilacs to smell.

Every time we went in and out the door of the cottage where we were working, the beautiful scent of these lilacs awed us. They were some of the largest, most luscious lilacs I've ever seen.

 And yes, the enemy will still tempt us with his twisted version of how we could resist and resent and rebuff and refuse to forgive--or refuse to ask forgiveness. 

The enemy often dangles more than one version of his snaky arguments before our noses--

If he doesn't try to get us to believe everything is all our fault and we ought to go kiss someone's toes again, even though we have already kissed them more than once,

then he will try to get us to believe nothing is ever our fault. 

It is always the other guy who is wrong and ought to be humble and ask forgiveness--even if he has already done it to the best of his ability.

 And while the blue sky smiles down, we deal with the scrap metal of our lives, trying to figure out how to get it to fit onto a trailer that is about 6 inches too narrow.

 So we decide to scrap the scrap.

The boys and men start tearing out the old wood floor of the truck bed, and take the old bed to pieces.

 And the girls rake up the old, dead leaves and wood scraps and mouse nests (and dead mice).

Well, Danny found the dead mouse.

Seems there are always dead mice somewhere to deal with.

 And dirt flying into your eyes, blown by the winds of adversity, 

while you keep doggedly working, shoveling the mess into that trailer to take to that burn heap.

 Gloves, shovels, rakes....

 and lots of woodpiles to move and fenceposts to tear out...

 and fuel tank to load...

 Bravo, fellows!

 Good job!

 After a couple hours of sorting and packing and cleaning up in the sunroom, I joined outside again as the guys try to finish loading more of the old pickup bed.

 Thar goes the frame!

 They got it on!

And it wasn't until I downloaded the photos today--that I noticed the beautiful ray of light coming straight down on that scene of action.

 It had been a day of lots of hard work--filling and dumping trailer load after trailer load of scrap wood, trimmed branches, old carpet, etc--and now loading up the scrap metal to take back to the Springs.

But we felt that God blessed our efforts.

I noticed after I got home, that my back, which had been giving me a lot of pain for days, had hardly bothered me all day. I had a lot of pain that evening, but all day, as we worked, 

God answered our prayer for strength and enabled us to help exhausted friends with their task.

And so--God sends His rays of sunshine, light, hope, and blessing

when we lay aside our own problems to go help another

and to lift their load.

One sweet interlude was when Jonathan lifted the cover on a propane tank, and discovered a nest inside with six baby bluebirds in it. 

We saw the parent bluebirds other times--waiting with grubs for their babies.

The mama would sit on a fencepost and give a signal, and the papa bluebird would chirp back and nosedive into the hole in the propane cover lid, and feed his hungry babies.

As for Mama and Papa Lucas, we stopped at McDonalds for our grub on the way home! :)