Trust me, there is NO GOLD at the end of the rainbow.

     I never saw any rainbows for the first many years of my life, which probably accounts for my fascination with them.  I know I'm not alone in my childlike excitement over them.  God thought they were beautiful enough to create them to signify a promise to Noah to never destroy the earth and all its inhabitants again -- by flood, anyway.  (Genesis 9:12-16)  The Irish believe little people hide treasure at the end of them, and who can ever find the end? Hollywood is in on the fantasy as well, with Darby O'Gill and the Little People and their treasure, though I never felt Darby's little people were particularly NICE Little Leprechauns, but that's off the point.  I also didn't like Finian's Rainbow much either.  But Judy Garland sang wistfully of rainbows and bluebirds, and so did Kermit the frog in his charming way.
     
     I saw a double rainbow in Haiti, over the sea, and that's the first rainbow I recollect ever seeing, at age 34.  But since I've moved to Berks County, PA, I see them all the time.  (Seems the sun always comes out while it's raining there, I wonder what that signifies?  Someone with more talent than I ought to write a song about that.)  Once, while driving along, I was astounded to see in a field about a mile away, the actual END of a rainbow.  That was a real novelty!  I suspected, though, that if I tried to drive down there, it would only elude me and I'd be late for lunch and my groceries would spoil.  I just drove home, and after that I began to carry a camera, and the daredevil picture taking I wrote about yesterday began!

     Then one day driving home from work, rainbows began coming out, and so did my camera.  I did pull over, at least, even if it was without much warning to the other drivers.  I began taking pictures of the most brilliant rainbows I'd seen in quite awhile.  Rainbows over cemeteries, in particular, because it seemed neat, like a promise after death.  Then I came down a hill and in a soy bean field right next to me was the end of a rainbow.  I pulled off the road and contemplated it.  Instead of fading, it got more brilliant.  I took several pictures and looked at them in my camera.  No, I wasn't losing it, the pictures were really there.  The end of the rainbow.  Think of it.  And NO TREASURE!!!  Stingy little Leprechauns...

     This week, as part of my job, I've been calling our patients who have been in the hospital to see how they are, if there's anything they need, any questions they have.  It's been very good, in a way, because sometimes people get home from the hospital and the whole discharge process is just a whirl.  When you finally get home and look and all the papers and things, you begin to wonder, "Now, what is this pill for again?  When do I call the doctor for this?" and even going through the reams of discharge instructions may not help so much.  That's when my call is supposed come to the rescue.


     I work in a Family Practice office, a big one, 6 doctors and thousands of patients.  Even so, we really get to know them because in a family practice office, we see people their whole lives, and their kids, their parents, etc.  I've worked here 12 years, ever since I got home from the mission field, and I've seen kids grow up and get their drivers license and drive off to college, and then get married and sometimes come in with a baby for vaccines!  So many of our patients are related, or neighbors, it can be "old home week" in the waiting room, too!  You won't believe this, but my doctors still make house calls.  Incredible, isn't it?  And I or one of the girls that work here have been known to jump in the car and drive up the road a bit to pick up a patient who can't get here, or drop off prescriptions for them at the local pharmacy, or take them their flu shot on the way home and give it to them.  Ya gotta help people in this life, and one thing I love working in this office is that people still care about each other.  Oh, we're not perfect, but we're more like a family than a lot of offices I know.


     What makes it hard, sometimes, are (is?) days like today, when more than half of the hospital people I'm calling were in the hospital and found out they have life threatening cancer.  One guy my age went in the hospital because he was having severe pain and found out he has this disease so rare that not only did I have to look it up, but so did the doctor here.  Turns out this nice and relatively young man is going to die, and it's going to be a very painful death, and a very disfiguring, very excruciatingly painful death.  That's a little hard for me to swallow, because of his age, and because I've known him so long.

     And one of my cancer patients is home and his daughter is trying to care for him.  When I called her I could hear the tears in her voice because when I called she heard tenderness in my voice and she nearly lost control.  I helped take care of both my father and my mother before their deaths from cancer, sitting up with them long nights with little sleep -- it's no picnic, and it's not like it is in the movies.  People don't look more beautiful as they're dying and whoever said love means you never have to say you're sorry was an idiot.

     Sometimes life is so beautiful I could weep, and I've heard music with swells that have filled my heart with joy, and I've knelt at the feet of God and praised Him with a full heart and uplifted hands, and I've stood on a hilltop and applauded the sunset and breathed deeply the salt air in a perfect sunrise with the sound of waves on a sandy shore. 


     But at least equal times, and maybe more, life is just plain hard, and painful, and often unfair.  There are times I've asked God "WHY???" also, and He hasn't always indulged me with a clear answer.  

"Just trust Me."  

     I think sometimes that over the years I've seen more pain and suffering and sickness and cruelty than I can stand.  But I still will trust Him.  I can do no else.  Only God make sense.  Only His Word makes SOME sense of it all.


     It was pointed out to me once that the best argument for no God in the world is also the best argument for there BEING a God.   "If there is a God, how can there be so much evil in the world??"  Well, if there ISN'T a God, how do you even know there is evil?  You can't know there is an evil unless there is a Good.  And the Good is God.


     I don't understand all of Life.  And when I'm a little more "up", I can probably do a little better, and maybe find that miraculous "Pot of Gold" that will make all the difference, and tie this all up in a nice little bow and make this all clear, instead of a mish-mash of nonsense.  


     But for now, I'll stick with Habakkuk:

"Though the fig tree does not bud
   and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
   and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
   and no cattle in the stalls,
 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
   I will be joyful in God my Savior.
  The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
   he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
   he enables me to go on the heights."

                                Habakkuk 3:17-19