As Nancy and I arrived home from church a week ago Sunday, Lily our little Golden Lab was nowhere to be seen.  This worried us because she faithfully runs to greet us whenever we turn up our lane off the county road.   As we swung our car into the yard we noticed everything was in disarray.  Trash barrels, plants and outdoor furniture was strewn everywhere and four inches of large hail-stones were piled up against the west side of the house. Our yet to be landscaped yard had been badly eroded with water. As the garage door gradually opened Lily, exuberant to see us, slinked out from under the door shaken and terrified from what must have been a horrendous and violent storm.   As we gathered our things putting the yard back together the sun broke through the angry dark sky illuminating rays of penetrating light forming one of the most vivid rainbows we had ever seen.  It appeared over the east pasture reminding us once again of God’s nature and desire to turn the storms of life into freshening renewed beauty.  God’s covenant, sealed with a rainbow, was a promise for all creation.

“This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.” [Genesis 9]