Wednesday morning, the timpani roll of thunder woke us before the alarm sounded and kept waking us until we surrendered and arose. The crash of giant cymbals made me jump during my coffee and Scripture tryst.
In the hard year we've walked through, I find myself praying for a rainbow every time it rains. Rainbows have never been memorial stones in my life, but somehow the promise of God's stayed hand, His bow aimed heavenward, suits the spirit of the season.
He has answered with a patch of rainbow moving across my kitchen wall, with a rainbow baby blanket that grew from a yarn sampler, with a fragment of rainbow in the clouds on a mostly sunny day as I drove to my first mammogram since breast cancer.
Wednesday my prayer was disappointed. No rainbow through the rain for me.
Today, I sat in my reading chair with a cup of tea after the first flurry of morning chores, and behold--
A beautiful, full-spectrum shard of stained glass on the skirt of the ottoman. It didn't last long, but the Lord drew me to that chair at the perfect moment for Him to answer my prayer.
Lord, redeem our misbegotten or mistimed prayers. Give us bread when we ask for stones, fish when we ask for serpents. When we ask for good things, and You ask us to wait, redeem the waiting with answers tinged with the deep Narnian magic that fits a whole world into a wardrobe. Thank You for Jesus, the most wonderful surprise of all, in whose name I pray. Amen.