Sun Dog Surprise

God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth.”

Teeth chattering, I leaned over and turned the heat up to full blast. It was cold, so cold that I hadn’t wanted my kids to wait at the bus stop and had decided to drive them to school instead. Though my car said it was minus twelve degrees, I knew from checking the weather online that it felt like a chilly minus twenty-four degrees.

I adore Minnesota, but this cold? Not so much. As we headed toward school, the girls chattered away in the back seat while I hunched over in my coat, seeking warmth.

Suddenly, I gasped. Since I was leaning over, I was perfectly positioned to notice the rainbow-like halos shimmering in the sky.

“Girls, do you see those sun dogs?” I asked, pointing to the patches of light that looked like parentheses on each side of the sun. “They look kind of like mini rainbows. We see them mostly when it’s really cold.”

“Yes!” they said excitedly, craning their necks to see the effect caused by the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals in the atmosphere. As we pulled to the curb at the school and the girls exited the car, I could still see them pointing to the sky, stopping to take a better look.

As I drove away, I was reminded of another shimmering vision in the sky: the rainbow mentioned in Genesis. After the great Flood that Noah, his family, and two of each animal survived in the ark, God promised Noah that he would never again flood the earth. As a sign of his promise, he sent a rainbow to arch through the sky.

And on a wintry day with no rain in sight, thinking of Noah’s rainbow is a reminder to me that even now, God’s love is evident in his creation. His promise to Noah endures—if only we’ll look for it.

Kristin

Today’s Act of Gratitude

Look to the skies. Thank God for the cloudless blue sky, the falling snow, the nourishing rain, the soaring birds, or the glowing sunset as it dips over the horizon.