Chasing Rainbows

I got four hours sleep in a row! Yay!

No, it's not enough, but it's better than what I've been getting, so I'm happy about that.

I was thinking yesterday that I've done this before, so I can do it again. Mind you, I was a lot younger but back then I also had to take care my young son on my own. One time, after working a double shift as a waitress, I fell asleep - standing up! haha! I fell down, of course, but I was that tired.

What I'm doing now and how hard it is still beats quitting or failing to try. Failing to try is failure. Trying and falling short is not failure. It's okay to fall down, as long as you don't stay there.

During one aspect of my training a Lt. Col (who is now a friend and colleague - and I'm so blessed to be able to say that), was teaching us about what to do when we've been injured in combat, when we think we're taking our last breath. He yelled at us (imagine the voice and tone of drill sgts you've seen in the movies) "YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO DIE!!!"

Sometimes the sound of his booming voice shouting that sentence comes back to me. It helps me. It's true. God has not given me permission to quit or die. (I even asked Him when I caught what's-his-name sleeping around. The answer was a clear no).

When I was a little kid I use to chase rainbows. I didn't believe that you really couldn't get to one, so thought I'd try to prove it. I'd walk and walk and walk. You walk all the way to the horizon to see that the rainbow is still miles away. But the thing about that is that when you get to the first horizon, there's another one, and another one. There's still somewhere to go.

I never did walk far enough to stand in a rainbow (it always got dark before I could get there and the rainbow would disappear). But one day I was sitting in school and the sunlight was shining through the windows into the classroom. I looked down and there, right on my desk, the light had hit in such a way as to produce the colours of the rainbow. There it was; a rainbow right on my desk. I stuck my hand in it and saw the colours of the rainbow on my skin. A rainbow had come to me. You CAN get to the end of a rainbow.

Zig Ziglar says, "Go as far as you can see, and once you get there, you can always see further."

I don't see an end in sight here. I don't see a solution. I don't see the things which I hope for. I don't even see signs of what God has promised. But I know that I can touch a rainbow and that it can happen when I least expect it.