Rainbows.

So when…I'm all by myself / And I can't hear You answer my cries for help / I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through / And I will go through the valley if You want me to.

— “If You Want Me To” by Ginny Owens

I didn’t grow up in a Christian denomination that spoke much about grace. Instead, sermons of sin, God’s displeasure, and the weakness of humans abounded. Once, a pastor informed my youth group that there was a specific formula one must follow when praying: God wouldn't listen otherwise. An evangelist who came to my church when I was barely a teenager suggested that those who weren’t filled with the Spirit might not be saved, and the only way to be sure you’d been filled with the Spirit was whether you’d spoken in tongues. For this reason and others, I grew up doubting the grace of God as frequently as I went to bed at night—and if I were being honest with myself, I’d have to say that I still sometimes have relapses. Every night for years and years, I prayed the sinner’s prayer just in case Jesus came back in the night. I wanted to cover my bases in case the last 24,591 sinner’s prayers didn’t take.

It’s no great surprise, then, that when I was eighteen years old, I was sure that God had revoked my salvation privileges forever. Looking back over my life, there were lots of things I regretted thinking or doing—from saying disrespectful things to my parents to making fun of people at school. Drugs, alcohol, and sex—the trinity of Big Sins—might never have tempted me, but there was still an undeniable sinfulness at my core. I kept praying words like, “I know You’re probably not listening anymore, but even if I can’t be saved, I’ll still try to live like I am. I still believe in You, and I’ll try to send others Your way. I’m just sorry I’ve screwed up so often, and this relationship didn’t work out any better.”

I remember praying exactly that way as my family drove to my aunt’s house one Friday afternoon. I was feeling especially bold that day, and asked God if he wouldn’t mind sending me a sign if in fact I hadn’t quite used up my grace allotment yet. “I know I’m probably overstepping the bounds here a little,” I whispered tentatively, “but if there’s still a little grace with my name on it, would you let me know?” I fell asleep, praying that prayer over and over. When I woke up from my nap, I swear the first thing I saw was a rainbow. Now, a rainbow might not mean much to you, but here’s what it says about them in Genesis: Then 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…When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and…when I see [it], I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth” (Genesis 9:12-14, 16, NLT). So every time God sees a rainbow, he remembers his covenant with us: he has guaranteed us love, grace, and protection from the perils of life on earth. It only seems fitting that if that’s what’s on God’s mind when he sees a rainbow, the same can be true of me. I spent the next several moments in the car contemplating the mercy of God…until I began talking myself out of the message. “Mercy for others, but no longer for me,” I reminded myself, frustrated that I’d been swept away by the magic of nature. “God is merciful to those who have more self-control than I have and can keep themselves from sinning.”

A few months later, it was January of 2003, and I was in a church service with my then-boyfriend. I don’t remember what the minister preached about that morning, but I do remember the overpowering urge to ask for prayer. I was still struggling (privately) with the feeling of being outside the bounds of salvation, but that rainbow had sent a tiny ray of light into my being, causing me to question if all really was lost. Almost immediately after I walked up to the altar, a woman joined me and began praying for me, praying all the things I wanted to say but didn’t feel that I could. Without ever asking why I was at the altar, she told me that God found me beautiful, treasured, and even holy. She told me that God did not take kindly to his children being terrorized by Satan’s lies. She told me that God roars like a lion against anyone who bullies, mistreats, or harms one of his own. She told me that I was precious and forgiven…and I believed her. I finally believed that I was still accepted and that God was welcoming me to his side. My body crumbled to the floor, and for a long time I sat in the presence of the Lord, letting grace and peace flood me. I belong to Jesus, I belong to Jesus, I belong to Jesus…

That night I ate dinner at my boyfriend’s house, and then we all took our regular spots in the sunroom. His mom sat on a wicker chair in the corner, and he and I settled onto a glider. In moments, the sun was setting in the most unbelievable way: the sunset was quite literally a gigantic rainbow that spanned the entire sky. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet…they were all there in order as the sun slipped below the horizon. We marveled; none of us had seen a sunset like that ever before. (And while I can’t speak for them, I can say that I haven’t seen anything remotely like it since.) Remember? I heard the word echoing somewhere within me. Remember? God reminded me that we had a covenant, he and I. He’d painted both rainbows—skywriting, really—to remind me of the immense love he harbors for me. If I hadn’t already believed that God had power even over the colors of the sunset, I certainly did then.

Ever since, I have sought rainbows. Although, I usually don’t even have to: if I am going through a trying time, if something is weighing heavily on my mind, a rainbow will inevitably appear. God always reminds me of his ultimate control over the situation and of my privileged place in his family. Just yesterday I tearfully returned to my apartment in Virginia after spending a fabulous week of respite at home. I begged the Lord to tell me why I’m having to go through this—being away from home, family, and friends—in order to get a degree I’ve fallen out of love with. He didn’t answer, but did send a rainbow to meet me along the interstate. I love you more than words can express, remember?

John the Baptist.

(NOTE: You’ll have to forgive the picture. I searched on Google Images for John the Baptist out of curiosity, and I thought this one was funny.)

I have never liked the phrase found God, as in “My nephew finally ‘found God.’” It makes God sound so commonplace, so easily lost and regained. Using this terminology, it sounds no more important to “find” God than it would be to “find” your long-lost stopwatch. Actually, I think we should be making every effort to "find" God as many times as possible during the day. Matthew 3 especially illumines this point with the introduction of John the Baptist.

Apparently, John’s entire diet was overgrown flies and raw honey. I suspect your mental image of him is similar to mine: unruly beard and hair, yellowed teeth, suntan a woman would kill for. If you only visualize him in the context of a preacher that lives in the desert and screams at people about repenting, that works. But imagine him in your daily routine. Hearing God’s message from the voice of a scruffy, insect-eating maniac in your office, neighborhood, or church would be difficult. It would take some serious searching to “find God” in John’s message because it would be a challenge to get past his appearance.

I’m not going to take this down the path of God-asks-that-we-love-even-the-stinky-people – although I could use a dose of that sometimes. Instead, God’s use of wild-eyed John reminds me to look for God even in the most unexpected of places. For example, I have always loved British Romantic poetry, which was written by men known for their pantheism. While I am no pantheist, I believe they might have been onto something that most modern-day Christians overlook: God doesn’t equal nature, but His glory resides in it. It’s why we get so enraged about things like the Gulf oil spill. It tarnishes our natural revelation of God, his very masterpieces. His magnificence glows in the sunset, flows in the waterfall, glistens in the stars; the British Romantics are masters of bringing this wonder to the surface. I can “find God” even in non-religious venues.

In January of this year I wrote about a similar experience: “finding God” in Friends. There’s an episode in the eighth season in which Rachel, pregnant with Ross’s baby, has moved in with Ross even though they are no longer involved and haven’t been in years. One afternoon in the third trimester of Rachel’s pregnancy, Ross goes on a date with a woman he met while he and Rachel were shopping for baby paraphernalia. When he returns, it’s obvious that Rachel is upset with him, but he can’t figure out why. “What do you want from me?” he asks, confused. Sighing, she replies, “I don’t want you to date. I don’t want to date you, but I don’t want anyone else to either. I want you to be at my beck and call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week…I know that’s ridiculous, but it’s how I feel.” After a moment’s pause, he shrugs and says, “Okay.” Looking up at him, mystified, she says, “‘Okay’? But I’m being so unreasonable!” It’s the picture of grace, right there. God is “lovesick” over us, as Philip Yancey says, and is willing to erase our sins with his grace over and over and over again…even though we’re being so unreasonable in asking for it. Even though we’re repenting and failing, repenting and failing, he welcomes us to his throne every time.

Finding God is not a once-in-a-lifetime event, rather it is a never-ending exercise for the Christian. How can I find God in what I do so I can emanate his message to those I encounter everyday? How can I find Love so that I can create a culture of kindness throughout my life?

Kaleidoscopes.

There’s something deliciously confessional about a blog, isn’t there? Things I would never actually say, for fear that it’s just too corny or insignificant, I feel free enough to present to the entire cyberspace world to peruse at its whim, should it so desire. Case in point: the reasoning behind naming this blog “The Kaleidoscope.”

It’s a great word.

Well, that, and the word kaleidoscope comes from two Greek roots: kalos, meaning “beautiful,” and eidos, meaning “form.” Don’t ooh and ahh just yet; the word gets better. The suffix –scope means “instrument for viewing, observing, or examining.” Therefore, a kalos-eidos-scope is an apparatus specifically designed to show the viewer everything beautiful in a particular design or shape. A kaleidoscope’s raison d’être is to suffuse beauty into someone’s immediate vision. Which is kind of our mission as responsible humans, right? Isn’t the Golden Rule all about upping the world beauty quotient a little?

So this blog is The Kaleidoscope because being a kaleidoscope is my goal. (I know that sounds cheesy, but hey, I’m in confessional mode here.) My life ought to consist of a shifting and colorful design of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I ought to be living beautifully.

I must admit, though, living beautifully has proven enormously challenging up here in Virginia. My days are filled with nothing but reading and writing in my second language, which is shaky even on my best days. I work my derrière off and make decent, but not great, grades. Those factors (and others of which I will spare you) add up to major discouragement a lot of the time, and to make it worse, I’m not sure why I’m doing it all. My life’s dream is not moving to a Francophone country or being a scholar of French literature.

But here’s what I do know about language: it’s a kaleidoscope. Language is an instrument that lets you see the beautiful forms of life around the world. You don’t learn a language so you can speak it; you learn a language so you can hear it, so you can appreciate the beauty that is other cultures, other colors, other designs of life. And here’s what I know about God: he’s the power behind the kaleidoscope. He shifts people and their talents around to create intricate and lovely designs that saturate the world in beauty. His grace allows us to see the magnificence of the world; indeed, his grace is the magnificence of the world. The changing colors of leaves and flowers, the prisms tucked away in dewdrops, the rainbows spread from east to west: it’s all kalos eidos, beautiful forms.

It may be years before I know why God opened the door for me to study French at the University of Virginia; by all accounts, I don’t belong here. But until I get my next set of marching orders, I’m just going to try to live like a kaleidoscope.