Last Friday I was in the pool before sunrise with my swim friends (AKA “the Squad”) for our regular weekday workout. It was a gray and cloudy morning, and after weeks of relentlessly hot and dry weather, the forecast was finally calling for rain. But the sky seemed to be telling a different story – it was overcast, but there were no rain clouds in sight.

It wasn’t until we swam a lap of backstroke that it came into view. Stretched out on our backs, looking up from the water, we saw a massive rainbow spanning the pre-dawn horizon. As soon as we reached the pool wall, we all stopped, stared up in disbelief, and breathed in a collective “wow”. It was such an unexpected sight on that gloomy morning, before the sun was visible in the eastern sky. And it hadn’t even rained yet.

I thought rainbows came AFTER a rain shower. And the sun had to be high in the sky to refract colors? This is not what my eighth grade Science teacher taught us!

As we continued our workout, I would check the sky between intervals to see if the colorful arch was still there, wishing I had my phone so I could capture it with a photo. I knew this unique moment would be difficult to convey in words (and I am struggling to do that right now!)

Rainbows are one of those awe-inspiring gifts of nature that operate fully independently of us humans. They typically appear when the sun comes out after a rain shower – or as I learned last Friday – they can also show up before a rain shower. But not always. We can’t predict or control their size – or whether we will see a single or a double rainbow.  Behind every rainbow is a mysterious alchemy of natural variables over which we have no control.

Maybe that’s what makes them so special to me. I love their unpredictability and the way they capture our attention and imagination so quietly – and then just evaporate without explanation. I have no role or responsibility in their drama. I’m just a lucky spectator with a free, front-row seat.

By contrast, when it comes to the natural variables in my backyard, I feel like a limited partner in a corporation of diverse investors that include the sun, the soil, the rain, seeds, roots, weather, weeds, bugs, foraging critters and others. Each of the partners in this undertaking can play a contributing role – and if we get it right, we can collectively profit from our shared investment. When a tree bears fruit or a flower blossoms, I experience the satisfaction of successful collaboration. The fruit or the flowers can feel like a tremendous gift – and they do every time – but they are a gift I worked for and expected. The miracle of a seed growing into a plant or a flower returning in the spring still amazes me every season, but there is less distance between those outcomes and their origin because I played a part in the process.

It’s a different story with rainbows. I can’t play a part in their origin or their outcome. They are randomly-occurring, ephemeral reminders to look up and beyond my horizon with a childlike capacity for hope.

In the Old Testament story of Noah’s Ark, God placed a rainbow in the sky after floods destroyed the land as a symbol of the covenant between Him and the earth. A reason for hope in the future.

God is still placing rainbows in the sky. I think He knows we need that hope more than ever today.

P.S. After that rainbow melted away last Friday morning, it finally rained in Tallahassee. A lot. And the swamp sunflower plants in my backyard that had been wilting away transformed from bare stalks into an explosion of yellow overnight.

“Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” (Genesis 9:13)