Chasing Rainbows

Chasing Rainbows

Sept 17, 2008

So today I was in the basement unpacking boxes,

yeah, I know it's only been four months since we got the final news we weren't getting that house,

but like it's time y'all

So anyway....

I found some of my knickknackery and in the bottom of a 

rubbermaid tub that actually had been packed up several Christmases ago 

and forgotten about in a corner somewhere was one of the most prized 

possessions that I am fortunate enough to own.

Wanna know what it is?

It's a rusty 'ole horse shoe.

Yup.

Wanna know why?

(*cue frosty image looking back in time and some romantic flashback soundtrack muzak)

A few years back I was taking a quick walk before dinner and grabbed my headphones and took off 

back Brown Hill Rd. It was raining, but it was a light rain and I had really been loving these walks with God. 

So I'm walking and worshipping and it's great. The sun starts coming out and as I'm climbing this hill 

of a road with steep embankments on either side of me and I literally feel the Holy Spirit playfully 

calling me from top of my left side, 

"Come up here!"  

So I threw caution to the wind and climbed - 

up and over and through and when I got to the top of that hill it was breathtaking!

the most wonderful view --- and a gorgeous rainbow backdrop

and in front me me though was a steep drop and a sharp climb out of that ravine 

and I thought to myself, "The view was great from here, wonder what'd be like from there?!  

So onward I went.

It looked much more inviting when it was just an invitation. 

Now I was invested and scratched and scared and bleeding.

By the time I had gotten to the top of that hill I thought "this is great! I'll just go left 

and it should take me back to the field that goes in behind my house. 

All I have to do is keep going straight."  

------------- TWO HOURS LOST IN THE WOODS LATER!..........

I was so bedraggled and sweaty and tired and scared.

I was crying out to God 'Please get me home I'm so sorry for being stupid!" 

and I really had this amazing conversation with God and He said these words to me:

"Laura, I did tell you to come up here, but I didn't tell you to keep going. 

You see sometimes you do what YOU want to do and you CONVINCE YOURSELF 

that I TOLD you to do it."

OUCH

I was crying and repenting and really getting what He was trying to show me.

VERY soon after that I saw a power line and knew I could find my way out from there. 

I stubbed my toe walking onward toward my secure way out and when I bent down 

to see what I'd hit, it was a rusty old horseshoe, in the MIDDLE of NOWHERE! 

And when I bent over to pick it up, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me,

"REMEMBER"

so I carried my prized possession out of those woods and soon found the dirt road 

that would take me home.

Do you know I ended up over a mile in the opposite direction of where I originally had gotten lost? 

Thinking the whole time I was walking in the direction of my house, 

I had been walking AWAY from my house the entire time?

And how often in life do we do that? Do we convince ourself we have God's blessing 

or it's okay to do what we are doing just because we really WANT to do it? 

When all the while as we 'happily' deceive ourselves we are going farther and farther away 

from where we really want to be....In the center of God's perfect will for our lives. 

That is "home".

  I ended up chasing a rainbow, charting the course in the exact shape of a rainbown 

with my souviner to remember this by.

So when you come to my house and see my pretty fireplace mantel decorations 

you won't have to wonder what that ugly piece of rusty metal is, leaning against some glass, 

it's not for good luck,

it's a memorial to the goodness of God 

who loved me enough to let me wander in desperation through the woods of Maryland, 

West Virginia and Pennsylvania, on a warm Autumn afternoon in my juvenile pursuits, 

where HE met ME in my anguish,

taught me a valuable lesson

and led me out in a plain path.

I look forward to the day I can sit in my chair, hold a grandchild in my arms and 

show them this horseshoe and tell them the story of God's pursuing love and that rainy day.

HE IS SO GOOD.