I have a picture, well a handful
of pictures, of my pair of rainbows that I finally managed to let go of a few
weeks ago. I got the sandals back in
2005, and they served me very well.
Unfortunately, during my first manic episode used the sandals as shower
shoes and probably wore them out, and that was the summer of 2009. I hung onto them and wore them a few more
years, but when I pulled them out of storage it was beyond obvious that I
needed to let them go. Warped cracked,
and just looked like no one in their right mind would put them on. I think that’s kindof the ironic point
though, that I wore them the way that no one in their right mind would. I dug them deep into the ground, probably as
rough on them as rough as I’d treat a pair of sturdy boots. But it’s really the mental state I was in
that is the interesting part of this story.
So… the week before I went into
the hospital I had some very interesting revelations, and to say that I was
having religious delusions is an understatement. I was reading religion into EVERYTHING… and I’ll
write more about that soon enough. But,
the Friday that I ended up going to the hospital was a bit of that hyped up
thinking, and really I’m not too sure where it all came from. But it was pouring down rain that day, I mean
pouring down rain, and I laughed that my rainbows were saving me from the
flood.
Well, that’s not the exact order
of events accounted for in Genesis, but at least some of you are familiar with
the story of Noah’s ark. God calls Noah
to build an ark before he executes justice on the earth by destroying every
living thing, Noah listens to and obeys God, his family builds the ark, they
gather animals two by two into the ark, God seals the door and the raining
began. And it rained, and it rained, and
it rained, for 40 days, destroying every living thing. I don’t know what that experience was like
for Noah’s family, but it seems like it would have been really disturbing.
Well, after the 40 days of
nonstop flooding, the weather mellowed out, and the seas began to lower, until
eventually it was safe for Noah’s family to venture onto dry land. Noah makes an alter to God out of his
gratitude of being saved by God’s judgment, and God makes a promise to never
destroy the earth again with a flood, and the sign of this promise was what we
call today the rainbow.
Now, I was never in an actual
flood per say, but every detail in my mind was conjuring up some kindof
religious metaphor, even if I didn’t really get it. But, I do know this, that every time I took a
shower in the hospital, I literally flooded the entire bathroom and half of the
bedroom. The nurses would get so
frustrated because of me. But if the judgment
of being in the hospital was partly to wash away my doubts and fears of God’s
intervention in my life, the rainbows were just another symbol of God’s
faithfulness and love and salvation.
While drowning in my sins, Christ came to earth, lived perfectly on my
behalf, was destroyed in the flood of God’s judgment in my place, was
resurrected to give me the victory not just to not drown but to dance on the water
with him.
All that from a pair of Rainbows. Go figure!
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