You can’t have a rainbow without the rain

Dolly Parton once said some very true words – “If you want the rainbow, you gotta’ put up with the rain!”

I have always enjoyed this quote, but I had never really “lived it” until last year.

There are certain dates that we are naturally inclined to remember in our lives.
Our birthdays.  The birthdays of our children, our parents, our siblings.
Anniversaries of first dates, first kisses and weddings.
These are dates that we’re happy to remember.  They bring a smile to our face when we think about them and it is a cause for celebration!

However, as much as we’d like to sometimes forget them, we are also inclined to remember not-so-happy dates.
The death of a loved one ~ or the date of an unwelcome diagnosis.

This last week has been a date that I would rather forget.
On June 27 last year, I was admitted to the hospital with what I just thought (and hoped) was
an extreme case of shortness of breath related to my pregnancy.
Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be the case.

Upon arriving at the hospital, I had a chest X-ray done and it showed a huge amount of fluid in my left lung.
I had a chest tube inserted immediately to drain the fluid, which took at least a day or two.

A few days later – July 1 – I had an MRI done.
It showed that there were several masses that had been covered up by the excessive amount of fluid.

The news was devastating.

But something interesting happened during that MRI that I have only shared with a few people.

During the scan, my baby girl was kicking up a storm.  I closed my eyes and started thinking about what the decorations would be in her nursery.
Michael and I had agreed that we would keep the room gender neutral – 4 gray walls.
That was about all we had accomplished so far.

As I’m lying there, I have a vision of a beautiful purple wall with a colorful rainbow painted on it.
The color wasn’t just any purple; it was deep, but the softness was still there.
It is hard to put into words.

I couldn’t get the image out of my head.

When I returned to my room, I searched and searched, trying to find the exact color purple that I had envisioned.  I finally found it, in a nursery picture nonetheless!

Then I went searching for the perfect rainbow to complement the purple wall
and I came across the Dolly Parton quote.

You can’t have a rainbow without the rain.

With everything that was going on at that time, there couldn’t have been a better quote to fit the situation.

I told Michael about my new idea for the nursery – 3 gray walls and 1 purple wall with the rainbow, and the quote.
He loved it!

Abbie looks at her rainbow wall and sees the quote every morning when she wakes up
and every night before she goes to bed.
When she’s able to understand the meaning behind the quote, I am sure she’ll love it as much as I do.

God took me through a storm so that I would understand how much of a blessing Abbie truly is.
She has been my rainbow through all of this – the beautiful, inspiring reward at the end of a tough road.
And she will continue to be.