Shock and Awe

This week, I Googled some presenters to a writers' conference I want to attend. Afterwards, on impulse, I Googled my own name. I had not done that in two or three years, so I was surprised by the number of hits that came back. Most of the ones were from my engineering days; no surprise there.

However I did find more recent postings as well: my entry in The Writer's Edge, a comment on Rachelle Gardner's blog, product reviews for Amazon and Christian Book Distributers and, right in the middle of the second page, a Spanish text entry.

Now my Spanish language skills are limited to "Si" and "caliente." Thanks to the "translate this" tool on Bing, I was able to turn the text into English. The translation was not perfect, but it was clear enough for me to recognize the article.

That is when I went into shock. A New Year's Day letter that I had sent to a few family members and friends in 2004 had made its way to this Spanish language site. You can see the article at http://www.renuevodeplenitud.com/el-arco-iris.html.

The letter was posted in 2006, correctly attributed, with only a few changes. I can say that, after my shock wore off, I was delighted that those responsible for the web site thought the letter was interesting enough to post. I am still in awe that God arranged for me to have a tiny presence on the web that glorified Him before I even knew what blogging was all about. I have posted the letter (slightly edited) below so that you can read it in the original language.

Dear friends,

The last day of 2004…how can that be? It seems like yesterday that we began the year. God has blessed me in so many ways, this year. I want to share with you one of those ways. He gave me a gift of beauty so incredible that it’s difficult to put into words.

On a trip to Texarkana, Arkansas to see my daughter and her family, my Mother and I were driving through some thunderstorms. The direction we were driving and the angle of the sun gave us the most complete double rainbow set that I have ever seen. We were crossing over the Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which rises in a high arc over the river, so we could see completely to the ends of both rainbows on the opposite bank.

As we left the bridge, it appeared as if we would drive right under the highest part of the arc of the closest rainbow. Instead, both rainbows appeared to jump away from us as we approached them. The road curved and we began driving towards the end of the rainbow nearest to us. I expected the rainbow to jump back again. It did not!

As we approached the end of the rainbow, the bands of colors began to change. The red, orange, green, violet and blue bands began to fade and thin until they were completely gone. However, the yellow band of color didn’t fade away. Instead, as we came closer to the end, the band of yellow became wider and the color deepened to a rich, beautiful gold.

The band of gold was now directly in front of us, the end anchored firmly in the traffic lane in which we were driving. The golden light was several feet wide at our closest approach. Then wonder of wonders, we drove right through it, the golden light flowing like a thin sheet of water - first over the hood of the car, then over the windshield!

I cannot explain how Mother and I felt at that moment except to say that it was a holy time. We were humbled by the graciousness of God to give us such a unique experience. We felt lifted right to the gates of heaven! It was difficult for me to keep both my hands on the steering wheel because what I wanted to do was to raise them in praise to God!

As I’ve thought over our experience, I think I can guess the origins of the legend about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I believe that it may have begun as someone else having had an experience similar to ours. I assume that they told others of this amazing occurrence. As the story spread, it would be easy to have “band of gold” changed to “pot of gold”.

A verse in the eighth chapter of the book of Romans tells us that God will “graciously give us all things.” It is out of His boundless storehouse of surprises that we are given the most unexpected gifts. This year, 2004, will always be “The Year of the Rainbow” for me. Happy New Year!

Q4U: Have you had either an unusual web site experience or a notable experience with a rainbow? If so, how did you react?