There it was in its yellow box pouring down rain over central and southwest Fort Worth.
Because the sun shone bright, I rushed Anna downstairs to look on the porch: sun + rain = rainbow, right? It took a few minutes for the rain to slow down and the clouds to part, but now there it was -- a bright, beautiful full bow of color.
I took the opportunity to remind her of who put the rainbow in the sky and why it's there. I said something like, "It reminds us that God keeps His promises; the story of Noah hints at the rescue God gives us through Jesus. When we see the rainbow we remember God is just, merciful, and good all at the same time."
I'm not THAT sharp of a parent, but something just clicked and connected and I got it right on the porch looking at the rainbow. The moment felt special.
*******
Fast forward a few dozen minutes later and my neighbor texted me about a kidnapping in Ryan Place, a neighborhood near ours. Stunned and confused, we checked that same news app followed by several social media platforms.
My neighbor was correct: Just after 6:30 that same night, an eight-year-old girl was literally snatched right off the street as she was walking with her mother.
Immediately my mother heart crushed. Everything was a little too close to home, a little too familiar. Neighborhood just like mine. The girl the same age as my oldest. We had even contemplated taking a walk around the block because the rain had stopped earlier that evening. Fear and anxiety gripped me around the throat . . .
I stuck with the story throughout the evening, finally sobbing when the video of the mother being shoved out of the car as she was fighting to save her daughter. I saw the car speed off and the mother running and screaming for help.
If only I could really describe to you how wrecked I felt about this. Bryan and I prayed earnestly. Facebook group after Facebook group was filled with information about the abduction and people wrote out prayer and after prayer.
Strangely, Anna, who had no idea about this whole ordeal, woke up with bad dreams at 1:00 a.m. I snuggled her for over an hour, which turned out to be just what I needed to get my body to relax and be able to sleep.
Bryan woke me up at 5:00 a.m. as he was getting ready for work to tell me the good news. I think I will never forget his face leaned into mine, whispering, "They found her safe. I know you'd want to know. Rest and sleep now. She is safe."
*******
With Bryan at work, I hustled to get the girls and me ready for church. To be honest, y'all, I was still an emotional wreck on the inside, mixed between relief and gratitude and fear and worry and praying that those hours of captivity were not horrific.
The pastor preached from Romans and used the word reign over and over. The word reign started repeating in my mind: reign, reign, rain, rain, rainbow.
RAINBOW!!!
In that moment, all the dots connected. When a mother was desperate to find her daughter . . . when police were just starting to mobilize . . . when the word was just starting to make its rounds . . . when Salem was still held by her captor . . . .
Anna Zane and I were on the porch watching a severe storm rumble through in minutes, watching the clouds part to reveal a perfect rainbow. "God keeps His promises," I said. And that promised bow stood bold and beautiful to the east of our house and over the very street where the abduction took place. From a storm that shouldn't have even been there, no less.
Coincidence? Oh, I think not. Absolutely not.
The rainbow represents a covenant -- a covenant that reminds us of God's justice against evil, His patience for restoration, His hints of redemption to come, His strength for the weak. That rainbow reminded me that even in the face of the most disgusting and terrifying evil, He is bigger. He is the Master of the skies, the Painter of the rainbow, and the One very present and very aware of our heartache, no doubt acting and moving when we are blind to it. What grace to us to pull back the clouds and paint the sky to remind us.
"And God said, 'This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all generations: I have my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth,'" (Genesis 9:12-13).
