Deer and Rainbows

God has used, in highly weird and wonderful ways, two divine “ambassadors” to remind all of us of His presence in this journey: deer and rainbows. The rainbows cradled us through the recurrence cancer battle; the deer have cradled me through Dane’s journey into her splendor. As we blog along, I will fill in the detail of both of these ambassadors. I shared about the deer in Dane’s memorial service (of all the God stamps, this may be the biggest of them all! It was a stamp that assured me that God is in the details of her journey to heaven). So deer and rainbows are my favorite “signs.” (and I’m not really a “signs” person). Today, I received a dose of both. It went something like this:

I made an appearance today at church, Centerville Christian Fellowship. I wanted to thank them for their help and support and begin, in an ever-so-slight way, the process of re-entry. When I arrived at the church, I grabbed a worship folder and saw that it had a rainbow on the cover, something I duly noted. But then at the end of the service, a couple people came up to me and asked, “Did you see the rainbow on the way to church this morning?” Several folks at church saw a rainbow on this cold, snowy, January Ohio morning. Unprecedented.

And then on my way home, just a few blocks from my house, my mind began to review Dana’s final moments and I let my mind go to an immature grief thought (sometimes my thinking is well-processed, other times it’s pretty primal) “How did this happen? How could Dana be gone so quickly?” And at that very moment, three deer, in single-file parade formation, graced across the road in front of me. For those at Dana’s memorial service, you’ll understand the significance. For those who weren’t at the memorial service, I’ll fill you in soon. For now, suffice to say, the timing of the deer was creepily God.

On a day when I feel like a little more of the pain is settling in, I needed these reminders.

Meanwhile, I was treated to and enjoyed BEING at the Bengal’s playoff game yesterday with some of the greatest guys in the world: Bruce, Randy, Bob, Kevin and Scott. And then today I agonized over my Packers’ anguishing loss (51-45 in overtime). As my Aunt Carolyn would so eloquently say, “Oh well.”