July 19

            Every one of us has at least one irrational fear of something. It may be of spiders; it may be of heights; it may be of flying. In my case, my big irrational fear is of thunderstorms. There’s even a name for it – brontophobia.

            There’s no real reason that I should be afraid of thunderstorms; thunder is just a loud noise, and the chance of being struck by lightning is very small. Nevertheless, there it is. I’m afraid of thunderstorms.

            Thunderstorms are certainly no fun if you’re caught outside in one of them. They can do tremendous damage and leave a wide patch of destruction in its wake. I recently saw a tree that looked as if a giant had taken a huge ax and chopped it down with one blow. Definitely not something you’d want to mess with.

            But even after the most horrifying of storms has passed and things return to normal, there is one thing that renders it a thing of beauty. If you look in the sky in just the right spot, at just the right time, you’ll see one of nature’s most beautiful sights – the rainbow.

            We know, essentially, that a rainbow occurs when white light from the sun passes through water and emerges as colored light. Many cultures, however, saw the rainbow as a bridge to heaven, an idea that lives on the Rainbow Bridge, a bridge which – after we cross it – will see us reunited with our loved ones, both two-legged and four-legged.

            I like the idea of a rainbow being a path to heaven. After all, in Genesis 9, God put the rainbow in the sky as the sign of the covenant that He would never destroy the world by flood. That would have been the worst storm in history. I’m sure nobody would want to go through that. The rainbow is a gentle reminder for us that no matter how bad the storm was or is, it will come to end, and we can come out stronger and more beautiful for it.

            All we need to remember is to place our trust in the One Who put the rainbow up there in the first place. He didn’t promise that we wouldn’t have storms in our lives, but He can take the worst of it and make it into something beautiful.