ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

Almost two months ago now (yes, I have had very little time for blogging these days), I wrote “The Rainbow Connection” with a promise to post further thoughts in response to some of the comments I received. So, let’s have those further thoughts.

One of the most common things people commented on was whether or not the young woman in the story was me. Some sounded unsure and some seemed to think it was obvious. So I’ll end the mystery by saying, yes, it was me. It happened at Sumner Presbyterian Church in Sumner, Washington sometime between 1999 and 2000. St. Andrew Catholic Church was the church across the street. I was 17-18 years old.

What I intended was to provoke some discussion of how God speaks to us. How do we know when something is from God, and even when it is, how do we know how to interpret it? In both the Bible and the world of non-Christian religions, prophecies, oracles, and revelations are notoriously difficult to understand. Crœsus, king of the Lydians (595 BC – c. 547 BC), supposedly asked the oracle at Delphi whether he should pursue a campaign against the Persians and was told that if he did so, he would destroy a great empire. He proceeded, interpreting the oracle to mean that he would be victorious, only to be defeated by the Persians. The empire he destroyed was his own. Likewise, Jesus told the Jews, “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.” Though he spoke of his own body, his audience interpreted it to mean the temple at Jerusalem. (John 2:18-22)

So, back to my story. I had a rainbow before me, and I didn’t immediately know how to interpret it. The possibilities that I listed in my first post all flowed through my head. My experience with God has always led me to believe that he has something of a sense of humor, much like Morgan Freeman’s portrayal of God in Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty, so I soon found myself laughing out loud and going with (C). I thought that the incident was God’s way of teasing me.

I revisited the question I asked that day several years later, when I was a student at BYU, and got a much clearer answer to my query. That answer was reinforced for me during my separation from my husband, when I came close to joining the church. The thought of going through with it filled me with uneasiness and dread, and I had no peace until I dropped the idea.

I don’t have any clear cut answers to the questions I’ve posed in this post, and I’m not sure there are any. I do tend to think that, when God really wants us to know something, he repeats himself and puts the idea back in our lives again and again.