I couldn't help but tell mama and the sweet sister-friend about how on the day she turned nine, the clouds gathered dark and lightning blazed streaks across the blackened sky, and the world seemed to be telling us that the party was over and it was time to go home.  We drove forty minutes through pelting raindrops and made our way through the back door just as the storm began waving good-bye.   Half-opened backpacks held soggy towels and fully exhausted children scattered wide throughout the house.  I made my way to the brick wall that we used to hang all things wet during the dry, heated summer months and there past the back fence stretching straight into the sky stood a rainbow,  and I knew it was a gift.

Over the years, the nine year old celebrating a birthday has been the one who has called me out to back yard decks to see the grand display of rainbow light spread wide above lakes and mountains.  She's the one who has held my hand and pulled me past sand boxes and down cobbled pathways to take me around a corner to view the wonder of light broken.  She's the one who whispers gently the reminder of the never forsaking, always loving, rainbow promise - the gift after the storm.

In a quiet moment the sweet sister-friend shares her rainbow story from the other side of the country where land is surrounded by sea, when the day seems unbearable and the dark seems suffocating, and she takes a moment to look skyward, and across the fields and through the distance there's a rainbow making promises to her, too.  And she is able to breathe again.

Then just this past month, the little one with the curls calls to me to come as she washes her hands for lunch.  She points excitedly to the wall where a rainbow circle appears from sunshine squeezing through the tiny front door peep hole. The girls all gather around and every day, half-way through the day, when hands are needing to be washed and the whirlwind of the day seems almost too much, one girl child announces the rainbow on the wall, we all gather around, and I am reminded to stop and remember one never forsaking, always loving, rainbow promise -  a gift.