“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6).
Many years ago, soon after we moved to the prairie, something went ‘thump’ in the night. Because it was a new house, I decided to wander around to find what caused the unknown sound. As I walked slowly through the semi-dark house, I noticed raindrops sticking to the windows. I decided to go to the large sliding glass doors in our dining room to watch the rain fall. Each raindrop sparkled like a prism in the light of a nearly full moon. As the drops fell, something materialized in the moderately dark sky to the northwest. I squinted to make out the details of the shimmering shape. It appeared to be an arc –– an arc of color. Was it a rainbow at night?
I had never seen or heard of a rainbow in the nighttime. I wondered if what I was seeing was real or my imagination. I felt something move behind me and it was my husband. I pointed to what I was seeing and he also saw the pale colors wavering in the night sky. We weren’t asleep or dreaming. It was real.
Whenever I see a rainbow, I remember God’s covenant promise with Noah and all mankind after He judged the earth. I was thinking how the sign given to Noah was during the day so why would there be a rainbow at night? It was then that the Lord spoke to me, “I will be faithful to you in the darkness to come – the times of tribulation ahead.”
In the morning I researched rainbows at night. I found there are moon rainbows or moonbows when light is reflected off the surface of the moon rather than direct sunlight. I learned that lunar rainbows are a very rare occurrence because several different conditions have to be exact. The moon has to be bright and full or near full and must be low in the sky (42 degrees or less) about 2 to 3 hours before sunrise. Rain, of course, has to be present, but falling opposite the moon’s light.
Evidently, the ‘bump in the night’ was used to awaken my husband and I to a special moment with the Creator of light, darkness, and moon rainbows. He had a personal message, a sign, that He wanted to show us before the rising of the sun. He wanted us to remember that through the tribulations to come, if we look, we would see His promise of faithfulness as a light always flickering in the darkness.
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